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The  method  of  the  divine 

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THE  METHOD 


OF 


THE  DIVINE   GOVERNMENT. 


THE  METHOD 


OP 


THE  DIVINE  GOVERNMENT, 


PHYSICAL  AND  MORAL. 


BY 


JAMES  M'COSH,  LL.D., 

PROFESSOR  OP  LOGIC  AND  METAPHTSICS  IN  THE  QUEEN'S  UNIVERSITT  FOB   IRELAND. 


Jfourijj  (ftbiiion. 


NEW  YORK: 
ROBERT  CARTER  &  BROTHERS, 

No.   530  BROADWAY. 

1857. 


That  to  the  height  of  this  great  argument 
I  may  assert  Eternal  Providence, 
And  Justify  the  ways  of  God  to  men." 

Milton's  Pah adisb  Lost. 


PREFACE  TO  FIRST  EDITION. 

We  live  in  an  age  in  which  the  reflecting  portion  of  mankind 
are  much  addicted  to  the  contemplation  of  the  works  of  nature. 
It  is  the  object  of  the  author,  in  this  Treatise,  to  "  interrogate 
nature,"  with  the  view  of  inducing  her  to  utter  her  voice  in 
answer  to  some  of  the  most  momentous  questions  which  the 
inquiring  spirit  of  man  can  put. 

He  thinks  it  needful  to  state,  thus  early,  that  he  proceeds  on 
the  inductive  method  in  his  inquiry,  and  not,  on  the  one  hand, 
after  the  plan  of  those  British  Rationalists,  who  set  out  with 
a  preconceived  system,  which  they  dignify  with  the  name  of 
Rational,  and  then  accommodate  all  that  they  see  to  it ;  nor,  on 
the  other  hand,  of  those  German  Intuitionalists,  who  boast  that 
they  can  construct  the  existing  universe  by  a  priori  speculation. 

To  guard  against  misapprehension,  he  wishes  it  to  be  under- 
stood, that  he  treats  in  this  book  of  the  Method  of  the  Divine 
Government  in  the  world,  rather  than  in  the  Church ;  of  the 
ordinary  providence  of  God,  rather  than  his  extraordinary  deal- 
ings towards  his  redeemed  people. 

The  reader  of  severe  taste  will  be  inclined  to  regard  the  In- 
troductory Book  as  too  loose  and  discursive  ;  and  all  the  apology 
that  the  author  has  to  offer  is,  that  he  was  afraid  of  driving 
back  the  general  reader,  by  leading  him  into  the  minutias  before 
he  had  contemplated  nature  under  its  general  aspect. 

The  general  reader,  on  the  other  hand,  may  be  disposed  to 
complain,  that  the  style  of  discussion  followed  in  some  of  the 
Sections  and  Notes  of  the  Second  and  Third  Books,  is  of  too 
abstruse  a  character.  He  has  to  justify  himself  to  such,  by 
stating,  that  he  did  not  feel  at  liberty,  in  such  an  age  as  this  to 


VI  PREFACE  TO  FIRST  EDITION. 

avoid  grappling  with  any  of  the  difficulties  which  fell  in  his 
way,  and  that  he  has  attempted,  by  the  principles  of  a  deeper 
philosophy,  to  confute  the  wrong  conclusions  drawn  by  a  super- 
ficial philosophy.  He  has  so  constructed  his  work,  that  the 
general  reader  may  pass  over  the  more  abstract  portions  (as,  for 
instance,  some  of  the  Illustrative  Notes)  without  losing  the  train 
of  argument. 

It  is  due  to  the  memory  of  the  late  Dr.  Chalmers  to  acknow- 
ledge, that  had  not  the  author  enjoyed  the  inestimable  privilege 
of  sitting  for  four  or  five  sessions  at  the  feet  of  this  illustrious 
man,  in  the  University  of  Edinburgh,  he  would,  in  all  probability, 
never  have  had  his  thoughts  directed  in  the  train  which  he  has 
followed,  and  have  been  without  the  spirit  which  he  has  sought 
to  cultivate,  as  he  would  certainly  have  been  without  not  a  few  of 
the  principles  which  he  has  carried  along  with  him  in  his  inves- 
tigations. It  is  with  no  feeling  of  presumption  that  he  thinks  it 
proper  to  add,  that  did  he  not  imagine  that  he  has  some  truth 
to  communicate,  not  contained  in  the  works  of  Dr.  Chalmers, 
he  should  not  have  obtruded  himself  on  the  public  notice,  as  it 
could  never  have  occurred  to  him,  that  he  was  able  to  state  the 
ideas  of  his  eloquent  preceptor  so  clearly  or  impressively  as  he 
has  done  himself,  in  his  writings  now  so  extensively  circulated. 

He  has  to  acknowledge  his  obligations  to  Principal  Cunning- 
ham, to  Professor  Buchanan,  and  to  the  Rev.  Dr.  Hanna,  for  the 
kind  encouragement  which  they  gave  him  to  proceed  with  this 
work,  when  submitted  to  them  for  their  counsel  ;  as  also  to  the 
two  last-mentioned  gentlemen  and  the  Rev.  John  Mackenzie, 
Ratho,  for  their  judicious  assistance  in  overlooking  the  sheets  as 
they  passed  through  the  press. 

Bbechk   January  1850. 


PREFACE  TO  FOURTH  EDITION. 

In  preparing  this  edition,  the  author  has  subjected  the  work 
to  a  thorough  revision.  His  aim  has  been  to  leave  out  all  that  is 
of  temporary,  and  to  retain  only  what  is  of  permanent  interest. 
Without  sensibly  increasing  the  volume,  he  has  introduced  new 
discussions  on  topics  of  some  importance,  both  in  their  theolo- 
gical and  philosophical  bearings. 

As  being  in  circumstances  to  support  them  by  a  large  body 
of  facts,  he  has  given  in  Book  Second  an  epitome  of  his  views 
and  published  observations  in  regard  to  the  forms  and  colours 
of  plants. 

In  the  Third  Book,  in  consequence  of  having  attained,  by 
farther  reflection,  clearer  views  of  some  ethical  points,  he  has 
modified  some  of  the  statements  of  former  editions. 

In  the  Appendix  he  has  reluctantly  felt  it  to  be  his  duty  to 
venture  a  protest  against  certain  principles  set  forth  by  the 
greatest  metaphysicians  of  the  age. 

Belfast,  May  1855. 


CONTENTS. 


BOOK  FIRST. 


GENERAL  VIEW  OF  THE  DIVINE  GOVERNMENT  AS  FITTED  TO  THROW 
LIGHT  ON  THE  CHARACTER  OF  GOD. 

CHAPTER  I. 

INTRODUCTION. 

PA  01 

Section  I. — The  Different  Classes  of  Objects  from  which  we  derive  our 

Idea  of  God,    ........  1 

Sect.  II. — Object  of  the  Treatise ;  Investigation  of  the  Providence  of 
God,  and  the  Conscience  -of  man,  or  the  External  and  Internal 
Government  of  God,    .......  16 


CHAPTER  II. 

GENERAL  ASPECT  OF  THE  DIVINE  GOVERNMENT  ;  PHENOMENA  PRE- 
SENTED BY  THE  PROVIDENCE  OF  GOD  AND  THE  CONSCIENCE  OP 
MAN,    THOUGH    COMMONLY    OVERLOOKED. 


Sect.  I. — Phenomena  often  omitted — The  Existence  of  Extensive  Suffer 

ing,  Bodily  and  Mental,  ..... 

Sect.  II. — The  Restraints  and  Penalties  of  Divine  Providence,    . 
Sect.  III. — The  Alienation  of  God  from  Man, 
Sect.  IV. — The  Alienation  of  Man  from  God, 

Illustrative  Note  (a). — The  Religious  History  of  Mankind, 
Sect.  V. — Schism  in  the  Human  Soul,      .... 


26 
36 
40 
44 
48 
54 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  III. 

THE  ACTUAL  WORLD,  AND  THE  VIEW  WHICH  IT  GIVES  OF  ITS 

GOVERNOR. 

FAGS 

Seut.  I. — Particular  Review  of  the  Five  Phenomena  before  specified,       .  57 

Sect.  II. — Other  General  Phenomena,  fitted  to  throw  Light  on  the  Con- 
dition of  the  World,    .......  66 


BOOK  SECOND. 

PARTICULAR  INQUIRY  INTO  THE  METHOD  OF  THE  DIVINE  GOVERNMENT 

IN  THE  PHYSICAL  WORLD. 

CHAPTER  I. 
GENERAL  LAWS  J    OR,  THE  PRINCIPLE  OF  ORDER. 

Sect.  I. — Different  things  denoted  by  the  Phrase  "Laws  of  Nature;" 

Properties  of  Matter,  Causes,  and  General  Laws,       ...  75 

Sect.  II. — Adjustment  of  the  Material  Substances,  with  their  Properties, 

to  each  other,  .......  86 

Sect.  III. — Special  Adjustments  required  in  order  to  produce  General 

Laws  or  Results,         .......  99 

Illustrative  Note  (b). — Laws  of  Phenomena,  Causes  of  Phe- 
nomena, Conditions  of  the  Operation  of  Causes — Review  of 

Whewell, 107 

Sect.  IV. — Wisdom  displayed  in  the  Prevalence  of  General  Laws,  and 
observable  Order  in  the  World — Correspondence  of  External  Nature 
to  the  Constitution  of  Man,     ......         Ill 

Illustrative  Note  (c). — Difference  between  Philosophical  Ob- 
servation and  Practical  Sagacity;  Relation  of  Science  and 

Art, l-°»9 

Sect.  V. — Connexion  of  God  with  his  Works,        .  .  .  .141 

Sect.  VI — Infinite  Power  and  Wisdom  required  to  Govern  a  World  so 

constituted,     ........         149 

Sect.  VII. — Unity  of  the  Mundane  System ;  Limits  to  Natural  Law,        .         151 

CHAPTER  II. 

PROVIDENCE  ;    OR,  THE  PRINCIPLE  OF  SPECIAL  ADAPTATION. 

Sect.  I. — Complication  of  Nature  resulting  in  Fortuities,  •   .  .         158 

Illustrative  Note  (d). — Phenomena  classified  according  as 
they  are  more  or  less  complicated;  Review  of  the  Positive 
Philosophy  of  M.  Aug.  Comte,  .  .  .  .164 


CONTENTS.  XI 

PAGE 

Sect.  II. — Purposes  served  by  the  Complication  and  Fortuities  of  Nature,  168 
Sect.  III. — On  a  General  and  Particular  Providence,       .            .            .181 

Illustrative  Note  (e). — Combe's  Constitution  of  Man,              .  187 

Sect  IV. — Method  of  Interpreting  the  Divine  Providence,            .            .  189 
£ect.  V. — Practical  Influence  of  the  various  Views  which  may  be  taken 

of  Divine  Providence — Atheism,  Pantheism,  Superstition,  True  Faith,  207 

Sect.  VI. — Method  of  answering  Prayer,  and  furthering  Spiritual  Ends,  215 

CHAPTER  III. 

RELATION  OF  THE  PROVIDENCE  OF  GOD  TO  THE  CHARACTER  OF  MAN. 

Sf.ct.  I. — General  Remarks  on  the  Relation  of  the  Physical  to  the  Moral 

Providence  of  God,      .......  227 

£ect.  II. — Aids  to  Virtue  and  Restraints  upon  Vice,         .             .             .  229 

Sect.  III. — Arrangements  needful  to  the  stability  of  the  Social  System,  234 
Shct.  IV. — State  of  Society  when  the  Aids  to  Virtue  and  the  Restraints 

upon  Vice  are  withdrawn,      ......  241 

Sect.  V. — Adaptation  of  this  world  to  Man,  considered  as  a  Fallen  Being,  249 
Sect.  VI. — Explanation  of  the  Mysteries  of  Divine  Providence,  furnished 

by  the  Sinfulness  of  Man's  Character,            ....  257 


BOOK  THIRD. 

PARTICULAR  INQUIRY  INTO  THE  PRINCIPLES  OF  THE  HUMAN  MIND 
THROUGH  WHICH  GOD  GOVERNS  MANKIND. 

CHAPTER  I. 
MAN'S  ORIGINAL  AND  INDESTRUCTIBLE  MORAL  NATURE. 

Sect.  I. — The  Will,  or  the  Optative  Faculty — Conditions  of  Responsibility,       2(33 

Sect.  II. — Freedom  and  Responsibility  compatible  with  the  Causal  Con- 
nexion of  God  with  his  Works,  .....         271 

Sect.  III. — Distinctions  to  be  attended  to  in  Ethical  Inquiry,       .  .         286 

Illustrative  Note  (f). — Method  of  Inquiry  in  Ethical  Science,         289 

Sect.  IV. — Inquiry  into  the  Nature  of  Conscience,  or  the  Mental  Faculty 
or  Feeling  which  recognises  and  reveals  the  Distinction  between 
Right  and  Wrong,       .......         291 

Sect.  V. — Qualities  which  must  meet  in  Morally  Right  Action  on  the 

part  of  Man,    ........         307 

Pect.  VI. — Practical  R.ule  to  be  followed  in  determining  what  is  Good 

and  Evil.  ........        324 

Sect.  VII. — Tendency  of  Virtuous  Action,  ....        326 

Sect.  VIII. — General  View  of  Man's  Original  Moral  Constitution,  as  illus- 
trative of  the  Character  of  God,  .....        330 


XU  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  II. 
ACTUAL  MORAL  STATE  OF  MAN. 

FAOB 

Sect.  I. — Nature  of  the  Judgments  pronounced  by  the  Conscience,         .  335 

Sect.  II. — 'Influence  of  a  Depraved  Will  upon  the  Moral  Judgments,  .  341 
Sect.  III. — Judgment  pronounced  by  the  Conscience  upon  the  Character 

of  Man,            ........  354 

Sect.  IV. — Farther  Inquiry  into  the  Yirtuousness,  and  more  particularly 

the  Godliness,  of  Man's  Character,    .  .  .  .  .301 

Sect.  V. — Theory  of  the  Production  of  the  Existing  Mora!  State  of  Man,  372 

Sect.  VI. — State  of  the  Conscience  in  the  Depraved  Nature,  .  .  371* 
Sect.  VII. — Restraints  laid  upon  Man  by  the  Conscience — their  Extent 

and  Character,            ...             ....  390 

Sect.  VIII.— On  the  Evil  Effects  produced  by  a  Condemning  Conscience,  395 

Sect.  IX. — General  Review  of  Man's  Existing  Moral  Nature,      .            .  408 

CHAPTER  in. 

MOTIVE  PRINCIPLES  OF  THE  MIND. 

Sect.  I. — Governing  Principles  neither  Virtuous  nor  Vicious. — The  Appe- 
tites and  Mental  Appetences,  .  .  .  .  .116 

Sect.  II. — The  same  Subject. — The  Emotions  and  Affections,      .  .        423 

Sect.  III. — Governing  Principles  that  are  Evil,   ....         429 

Sect.  IV. — Influence  exercised  by  these  Principles  in  biassing  the  Con- 
science, ........        43G 

Illustrative  Note  (g). — Human  Virtues  (so  called)  and  Vices 

running  into  each  other,       .....         444 

Sect.  V. — Summary  of  the  Argument  from  the  Combined  View  of  the 

Physical  and  the  Moral,         ......        447 


BOOK  FOURTH. 

RESULTS — THE  RECONCILIATION  OF  GOD  AND  MAN. 

CHAPTER  I. 
NATURAL  AND  REVEALED  RELIGION — THE  CHARACTER  OF  GOD. 

Sect.  I. — Advantage  of  Harmonizing  Nature  and  Revelation,      .  •         449 

Sect.  II. — Prevailing  Defective  Views  of  the  Divine  Character,    .  .        454 

Sect  III.— Character  of  God  as  Revealed  in  Scripture,    .  .  .         461 


CONTENTS. 


Xlll 


CHAPTER  II. 


RESTORATION  OF  MAN. 

Sect.  I. — Symptoms  of  Intended  Restoration,        .... 

Sect.  II. — What  is  needful  in  order  to  the  Restoration  of  Man — (1.)  In 
Relation  to  the  Character  of  God,       . 

Sect.  III. — What  is  needful  in  order  to  the  Restoration  of  Man — (2  )  In 
its  Relation  to  the  Character  of  Man.  The  need  of  an  Interposition 
in  the  Human  Heart  and  Character,  .... 

Sect.  IV. — Same  Subject  continued. — Means  of  applying  the  Aid, 

Illustrative  Note  (h). — The  German  Intuitional  Theology,   . 

Sect.  V.— The  World  to  Come,     .  .  .  .  •  . 


PASS 

468 
473 


480 
487 
507 
512 


APPENDIX  ON  FUNDAMENTAL  PRINCIPLES. 

Art.  I. — Logical  Nature  of  the  Theistic  Argument, 

Art.  II. — On  the  Properties  of  Matter,      .... 

Art.  III. — Relation  between  Cause  and  Effect  in  the  Physical  World, 

Art.  IV. — Internal  Belief  in  CausatioD,    .... 

Ar«.  V. — The  Living  Writers  who  treat  of  the  Principles  of  the  Inductive 

Philosophy,     ....... 

Ar'I   VI. — Scheme  of  Intuitive  Intellectual  Principles  considered  Psycho 

,ogically,        ....... 

Supplemental  Art. — On  the  Phenomenal  and  Relative  Theories 
of  Human  Knowledge,     ..... 

AK'i    f  II. — Operation  of  Cause  and  Effect  in  the  Human  Mind,  . 


519 
521 
523 

527 

531 

532 

536 
639 


THE  METHOD 


OF 


THE   DIVINE   GOVERNMENT. 


METHOD  OF  THE  DIVINE  GOVERNMENT- 


BOOK  FIRST. 

GENERAL  VIEW  OF  THE  DIVINE  GOVERNMENT  AS  FITTED  TO 
THROW  LIGHT  ON  THE  CHARACTER  OF  GOD. 


CHAP.  I. INTRODUCTION. 

SECT.  I. — THE  DIFFERENT  CLASSES  OF  OBJECTS  FROM  WHICH  WE 
DERIVE  OUR  IDEA  OF  GOD. 

Suppose  that  the  sun,  rising  and  setting  as  at  present,  had  been 
perpetually  hid  from  the  eye  by  an  intervening  cloud  or  shade 
which  concealed  his  body  without  obstructing  his  beams,  there 
might  still  have  been  a  universal  impression  that  a  great  lumi- 
nary existed  as  the  cause  of  the  light  which  daily  illuminated  our 
globe.  Different  persons  might  have  fixed  on  different  objects, 
as  reflecting  the  light  of  heaven  most  impressively  ;  some  on  the 
fleecy  or  gilded  clouds  ;  others  on  the  lively  verdure  of  the  grass 
and  forests,  or  on  the  cerulean  ocean,  or  on  the  rich  grain  of 
autumn  glistening  in  the  golden  beams;  but  all  would  have 
rejoiced  to  conclude,  that  there  was  a  sun  behind  the  veil. 

Though  God  is  invisible  to  the  bodily  eye — though  he  is,  as  it 
were,  behind  a  veil — yet  the  idea  of  his  existence  is  pressed  on 
the  mind  from  a  variety  of  quarters.  Were  it  not  so,  the  ap- 
prehension of,  and  belief  in,  a  supernatural  power  or  being  would 
not  be  so  universally  entertained.  The  mind  that  refuses  the 
light  which  comes  from  one  region,  is  obliged  to  receive  that 
which  comes  from  another  quarter  of  the  heavens  or  earth.  It 
may  be  interesting  to  trace  to  its  sources  the  most  important 
conception  which  the  mind  of  man  can  form. 

A 


ii  INTRODUCTION. 

First,  There  are  the  order  and  adaptation  exhibited  in 
the  separate  material  works  of  god. 

An  acquaintance  with  the  depths  or  the  heights  of  science  is 
not  needful,  in  order  to  enable  mankind  to  appreciate  this  argu- 
ment. Every  person  who  has  observed  the  springing  of  the  grass 
and  grain  and  the  budding  of  flowers,  who  has  taken  but  a 
passing  survey  of  his  own  bodily  frame,  or  of  the  motions  of  the 
heavenly  bodies,  has  had  the  idea  impressed  upon  his  mind  of 
reigning  order  and  wisdom.  The  harmonious  colours,  and  the 
typical  forms  of  plants  and  animals,  everywhere  meeting  and 
delighting  the  eyes ;  the  mathematical  shapes — as  in  the  hex- 
agonal cells  of  the  bee-hive,  and  the  numerical  relations  of 
parts — as  in  the  organs  of  flowers,  which  are  ever  furnishing  a 
pleasant  exercise  to  the  intellect ;  all  shew  that  the  forces  of 
nature  move  in  numbered  squadrons,  with  measured  step,  and 
on  a  predetermined  plan,  as  if  under  the  command  of  a  presiding 
intelligence.  This  argument  from  the  order  of  the  universe  was 
fondly  dwelt  on  by  the  ancient  theists,  as  delivering  them  from 
the  two  phantoms  so  dreaded  by  them — a  capricious  chance  and 
an  unrelenting  fate.  It  has  been  left  very  much  out  of  sight  of 
late  years  in  works  on  natural  theology,  but  must  come  once 
more  into  prominence,  now  that  it  is  being  demonstrated  that 
every  part  of  the  skeleton  of  the  plant  and  animal  is  constructed 
after  a  model  form.* 

The  argument  derived  from  the  mutual  adaptation  of  inde- 
pendent natural  objects,  whereby  they  co-operate  to  fulfil  an 
obvious  end,  has  been  more  frequently  urged  within  the  last  age 
or  two,  and  contains  still  more  satisfactory  proof  of  the  existence 
of  a  personal  God.  Socrates,  representing  in  this,  as  he  did  in 
everything  else,  the  philosophy  of  profound  common  sense — such 
as  shrewd,  observant,  unsophisticated  men  in  all  ages  have 
delighted  in — has  led  the  way  in  the  statement  of  this  branch 
of  the  evidence.  "  Is  not  the  providence  of  God  manifested  in  a 
remarkable  manner,  inasmuch  as  the  eye  of  man,  which  is  so 
delicate  in  its  structure,  hath  provided  for  it  eyelids  like  doors 
for  protection,  and  which  extend  themselves  whenever  it  is  need- 
ful, and  again  close  when  sleep  approaches  ?"  "  Is  it  not  worthy 
of  admiration  that  the  ears  should  take  in  sounds  of  every  sort, 

*  This  new  and  most  interesting  subject  will  be  found  partially  illustrated  in 
Book  II.  Chap.  IV. 


SOURCES  OF  OUR  IDEA  OF  GOD.  6 

and  yet  not  be  too  much  filled  with  them  ?"  "  That  the  fore- 
teeth of  the  animal  should  he  formed  in  such'  a  manner  as  is 
evidently  best  fitted  for  the  cutting  of  its  food,  as  those  on  the 
side  are  adapted  for  grinding  it  to  pieces  ?" 

It  is  pleasant  to  reflect  that  God  hath  so  arranged  his  provi- 
dence, and  so  constituted  mankind,  that  it  does  not  require  an 
aquaintance  with  abstruse  science  to  enable  them  to  rise  to  a 
knowledge  of  God.  The  boy  who  has  marked  the  instincts  of 
birds  in  building  their  nests  ;  the  shepherd  who  has  watched  the 
habits  of  his  flocks  and  herds,  and  of  the  beasts  of  prey  that 
attack  them ;  the  peasant  who  has  attended  to  the  migration  of 
the  swallow,  the  cuckoo,  or  any  other  favourite  bird,  or  who 
has  noted  the  working  of  bees,  their  government  and  order  in 
the  hive  in  which  he  and  his  family  feel  so  deep  an  interest ; 
have  all  seen  enough  to  constrain  them  to  acknowledge  that 
there  must  be  higher  intelligence  to  instruct  these  creatures, 
which  have  manifestly  nothing  in  themselves  beyond  blind  and 
unreasoning  instinct.  But  while  scientific  attainment  is  not 
necessary  in  order  to  produce  the  conviction  in  the  first  instance, 
it  is  gratifying  to  find  that  research,  in  every  department  of 
nature,  multiplies  the  evidence,  and  exhibits  an  ever-increasing 
number  of  fresh  adaptations.  Every  new  discovery  in  science 
yields  its  contribution  to  the  proofs  and  illustrations  of  the 
wisdom,  the  power,  and  goodness  of  God.  This  scientific  argu- 
ment was  prosecuted,  as  far  as  ancient  physics  admitted,  by 
Cicero  in  his  Treatise  on  the  Nature  of  the  Gods ;  in  modern 
times,  it  was  followed  out  by  Derham  and  Ray ;  at  a  later  date, 
Paley  became  its  most  elegant  and  judicious  expounder  ;  and  it 
has  kept  pace  with  modern  science  in  the  Bridgewater  Treatises, 
and  in  the  more  fragmentary  works  of  Sir  Charles  Bell,  and 
other  writers. 

There  is  nothing  abstruse,  complicated,  or  mysterious  in  the 
chain  of  reasoning  which  leads  us  to  believe  in  a  supernatural 
intelligence,  or  rather  in  the  single  link  which  connects  the  works 
of  God  and  the  worker.  It  is  represented  by  Dr.  Thomas  Reid, 
as  containing  in  its  logical  form  two  propositions — the  major, 
that  design  may  be  traced  from  its  effects ;  and  the  minor,  that 
there  are  appearances  of  design  in  the  universe*     It  is  one  of 

*  "  The  argument  from  final  causes,"  says  Dr.  Reid,  "  when  reduced  to  a  syl- 
logism, has  these  two  premises.     First,  that  design  and  intelligence  in  the  cause 


INTRODUCTION. 


the  most  common  of  all  kinds  of  reasoning,  and  is  altogether 
suited  to  man's  "habits  of  observing  and  thinking.  Every  man 
is  obliged  to  proceed  on  the  argument,  in  the  acquisition  of 
necessary  secular  knowledge,  and  in  the  discharge  of  the  ordinary 
business  of  life. 


may  with  certainty  be  inferred  from  marks  or  signs  of  it  in  the  effect.  This  is  the 
principle  we  have  been  considering,  and  we  may  call  it  the  major  proposition  of 
the  argument.  The  second,  which  we  call  the  minor  proposition,  is,  that  there 
are  in  fact  the  clearest  marks  of  design  and  wisdom  in  the  works  of  nature ;  and 
the  conclusion  is,  that  the  works  of  nature  are  the  effects  of  a  wise  and  intelligent 
cause.  One  must  either  assent  to  the  conclusion,  or  deny  one  or  other  of  the 
premises."  (Essay  vi.  c.  vi.)  The  French  Atheistical  school,  headed  by  M.  Aug. 
Comte,  would  at  times  cast  doubts  on  the  second  proposition,  and  explain  away 
some  of  the  supposed  marks  of  design,  dwelt  upon  by  writers  on  natural  theology. 
But  in  doing  so,  it  may  be  remarked  invariably,  that  they  only  succeed  in  refer- 
ring a  given  adaptation  to  a  more  general  cause ;  and  they  do  not  seem  to  reflect 
that  we  are  ready  to  follow  them  thither,  and  to  point  out  the  adaptation  there, 
possibly  under  a  double  form,  or  one  adaptation  adjusted  so  as  to  produce  another. 
When  we  point,  for  instance,  to  the  eye,  as  showing  such  thought,  such  care,  such 
refinement,  such  advantage  taken  of  the  properties  of  natural  agents,  "  and  fitted," 
as  Sir  John  ilerschel  remarks,  "  to  force  upon  us  a  conviction  of  deliberate  choice 
and  premeditated  design,  more  strongly  perhaps  than  any  single  contrivance  to 
be  found  in  nature  or  art,"  the  Atheist  contents  himself  with  saying,  that  the  eye 
is  produced  by  that  law  of  nature  according  to  which  children  resemble  their 
parents ;  and  he  forgets  that  we  follow  him  from  the  child  to  the  parent,  and  there 
discover  the  very  same  adaptation;  with  this  farther  adaptation,  that  the  parent's 
frame  is  so  constructed  as  to  be  able  to  produce  an  offspring  after  his  own  like- 
ness. And  all  the  miserable  cavils  of  the  Atheistical  school  leave  a  host  of  traces 
of  design  undenied  and  even  untouched.  As  the  second  proposition  cannot  be 
denied  with  any  appearance  of  plausibility,  they  set  themselves  with  most  vigour 
to  attack  the  first,  and  represent  all  the  apparent  traces  of  design  as  mere  "  con- 
ditions of  existence."  "  The  provision  made  for  the  stability  of  the  solar  system," 
says  M.  Comte,  "is  no  evidence  of  a  final  cause.  The  pretended  final  cause 
reduces  itself,  as  has  been  seen  on  all  analogous  occasions,  to  this  puerile  observa- 
tion— there  are  no  stars  inhabited  but  those  that  are  habitable.  They  return,  in 
a  word,  to  the  principle  of  the  conditions  of  existence,  which  is  the  true  positive 
transformation  of  the  doctrine  of  final  causes,  and  of  which  the  fertility  and  bear- 
ing are  vastly  greater."  If  there  be  any  logical  force  in  this  remark,  it  must  be 
held  as  affirming  that  no  adjustments,  however  numerous  and  strikingly  applied 
to  secure  an  end,  can  be  held  as  evidential  of  design.  Now  let  us  apply  this  to 
the  common  illustration.  We  lift  a  watch,  found  lying  on  a  bare  common,  and  ex- 
amine it,  and  are  about  to  conclude  that  it  must  have  had  a  maker,  when  M.  Comte 
comes  to  us  and  assures  us  that  all  this  adaptation  of  wheel  and  axle,  of  hand  and 
figure,  is  but  the  condition  of  the  existence  of  the  watch.  True,  it  is  the  condition 
of  the  existence  of  the  watch,  but  it  is  a  proof  too  of  a  designing  mind  arranging 
the  condition.  We  certainly  hold  the  remark  to  be  sufficiently  "puerile,"  and 
the  sneer  reared  upon  it  to  be  sufficiently  profane.  "  At  this  present  time,  for 
minds  properly  familiarized  with  true  astronomical  philosophy,  the  heavens  dis- 


sources  of  our  idea  of  god.  5 

Secondly,  There  are  the  relations  which  the  physical 
world  bears  to  man,  which  we  call  the  providential 
arrangements  of  the  divine  government. 

Iii  observing  these,  the  mind  rises  beyond  mere  isolated  mate- 
rial objects  and  laws,  and  even  beyond  the  relations  between 
them,  to  contemplate  the  grand  results  in  the  dealings  of  God 
towards  his  creatures.  It  is  to  this  latter  class  of  facts  that  the 
majority  of  mankind  look,  rather  than  to,  the  other.  An  ex- 
tended observation  of  the  nice  adjustments  in  material  objects 
requires  a  kind  of  microscopic  eye  and  a  habit  of  fixed  attention, 
such  as  are  not  possessed  by  the  great  body  of  mankind  ;  who 
look  not  so  much  to  these  as  to  prominent  events  cognizable 
by  the  senses  without  any  minute  inspection,  and  which  indeed 
force  themselves  upon  the  attention  ; — the  providential  care  of 
God,  and  the  restraints  of  his  government,  being  not  so  much 
isolated  adaptations,  as  the  grand  results  in  their  bearing!?  upon 
mankind  to  which  these  adaptations  lead.  The  common  mind, 
unaccustomed  to  dissection,  can  pursue  the  scientific  argument, 
and  the  observation  on  whicli  it  proceeds,  but  a  very  little  way ; 
but  this  other  it  can  prosecute  to  a  great  length.  Inquire  into 
the  ground  of  the  belief  in  the  existence  of  God,  entertained  by 
the  working  man  or  man  of  business,  and  you  will  probably  find 
it,  not  an  ingenious  inspection  of  his  own  frame  or  of  any  mate- 
rial object,  but  an  observation  of  the  care  which  God  takes  of 
him,  and  of  the  judgments  witb  which  from  time  to  time  he 
visits  the  world.  It  is  this  more  obvious  observation  which  falls 
in  most  readily  with  his  habitual  train  of  thought  and  feeling, 
and  which  comes  home  most  powerfully  to  his  heart  and  ex- 
perience. 

The  arcmrnent  under  this  second  head  is  not  different  in  its 
logical  nature  from  the  former  ;  but  the  class  of  objects  on  which 
it  is  founded  is  different.     It  is,  as  we  apprehend,  the  class  of 

play  no  other  glory  than  that  of  Hipparchus,  of  Kepler,  of  Newton,  and  of  all  who 
have  helped  to  establish  these  laws."  No  persons  were  more  willing  to  admit  than 
the  parties  here  named,  that  the  laws  which  they  discovered  must  have  existed 
before  they  could  discover  them, — that  the  glory  belongs  to  Him  who  established 
these  laws,  and  to  them  but  the  reflected  glory  of  having  first,  interpreted  them  to 
mankind.  Once  admit,  as  we  think  the  rational  mind  cannot  but  admit,  that 
adjustments  towards  a  given  end,  if  sufficiently  numerous  and  striking,  may  be 
held  as  proving  the  existence  of  a  designing  mind,  and  the  number  and  nature  of 
such  adjustments  in  the  universe  will  at  once  force  upon  us  the  conclusion,  that 
this  world  is  under  a  presiding  intelligence. — (See  Pos.  Phil.  vol.  ii.  pp.  28,  39.) 


6  INTRODCCTION. 

phenomena  now  referred  to,  which  raises  the  mind  to  the  idea  of 
a  God  above  nature  and  ruling  over  it.     "  As  the  consideration 
of  nature,"  says  a  sagacious  thinker,  "  shows  an  inherent  intelli- 
gence, which  may  also  be  conceived  as  coherent  with  nature,  so 
does  history,  on  a  hundred  occasions,  show  an  intelligence  which 
is  distinct  from  nature,  which  conducts  and  determines  those 
things  which  may  seem  to  us  accidental ;  and  it  is  not  true  that 
the  study  of  history  weakens  the  belief  in  a  divine  providence. 
History  is  of  all  kinds  of  knowledge  the  one  which  tends  most 
decidedly  to  that  belief."*     There  is  ground  for  the  remark  here 
made,  both  as  to  the  effect  usually  produced  by  the  contempla- 
tion of  nature,  and  the  impression  left  by  the  intelligent  con- 
templation of  history.     He  who  confines  his  attention  to  the 
mere  structure  and  laws  of  physical  nature,  is  apt  to  speak  and 
think  of  God  as  merely  a  kind  of  intelligent  principle  inherent 
in,  and  coherent  with,  nature.     It  is  when  we  contemplate  the 
dealings  of  God  towards  the  human  race,  whether  in  the  events 
of  past  history,  (to  which  Niebuhr  more  particularly  refers,)  or 
in  those  which  fall  under  our  observation  and  experience,  that 
we  rise  to  the  idea  of  a  God  distinct  from  nature  and  above 
nature,  controlling  and  governing  it.     '"'God,"  says  Leibnitz, 
"  has  the  qualities  of  a  good  governor,  as  well  as  of  a  great 
architect."f     The  physical  inquirer  discovers  the  qualities  that 
indicate  the  latter  of  these,  and  speaks  of  God  as  a  great  archi- 
tect, as  an  ingenious  mechanician,  or  an  unrivalled  artist.     It  is 
from  a  survey  of  the  events  of  providence,  being  the  combination 
and  results  of  those  laws  which  the  man  of  science  investigates 
severally,  that  we  rise  to  enlarged  views  of  the  Governor  of  the 
universe. 

Thirdly,  There  is  the  human  soul,  with  its  consciousness, 
its  intelligence,  and  its  benign  feelings. 

A  reference  is  made  to  these  at  present,  not  as  the  agents  by 
which  the  process  of  proof  is  conducted,  but  as  the  objects  con- 
templated, and  on  which  the  proof  rests.  The  human  reason, 
with  its  intuitive  or  logical  laws,  must  be  the  instrument  em- 
ployed in  every  branch  of  the  argument,  and  whatever  be  the 
data  on  which  it  proceeds  ;  but  in  the  case  now  before  us,  reason 
finds  its  data  in  the  mind  itself. 

*  Niebnlir's  Lectures,  vol.  i.  p.  146.  j  Essays  on  the  Goodness  of  God,  P.  iii. 


SOURCES  OF  OUR  IDEA  OF  GOD.  7 

It  is  never  to  be  forgotten,  that,  apart  from  a  reflex  contem- 
plation of  the  human  mind,  it  is  impossible  to  rise  to  the  con- 
ception of  a  living  and  intelligent  God.  It  is  in  the  soul,  small 
though  it  be  when  compared  with  the  object  reflected,  that  we 
are  to  discover  most  distinctly  represented  the  image  of  a  spiri- 
tual God.  Without  taking  human  consciousness  and  intelligence 
and  feeling  into  view,  God  could  be  conceived  of  as  a  mere 
principle  of  mechanism  or  order  in  nature,  as  a  power  of  fate, 
or  a  law  of  development  in  or  above  nature,  (as  with  Schelling,) 
rather  than  a  real  and  living  agent.  It  is  the  possession  of  con- 
sciousness and  intelligent  purpose  by  man  that  suggests  the  idea 
of  a  conscious  and  a  personal  God.  From  what  we  have  our- 
selves experienced,  we  know  that  intelligence  is  needful,  in  order 
to  produce  such  effects  as  exist  in  nature  around  us ;  and  thence 
we  rise  in  our  conceptions  to  a  living  soul  presiding  over  the 
universe  and  regulating  it,  not  according  to  a  mere  law  of  me- 
chanism or  development,  but  by  the  wisdom  of  spiritual  intelli- 
gence and  love. 

The  very  existence  of  the  human  soul  as  a  created  object, 
which  it  evidently  is,  implies  an  intelligent  soul  as  its  creator, 
and  that  a  soul  of  vast  power  and  great  intelligence.  If  the 
creation  of  the  beautiful  forms  of  matter  argues  an  extraordinary 
power  and  skill,  surely  the  creation  of  spiritual  intelligent  being 
is  fitted  to  impress  us  still  more  with  the  knowledge  and  wisdom 
of  the  Creator. 

Some  think  that  the  proof  of  the  existence  of  God,  derived 
from  the  mind  of  man,  can  be  stretched  much  farther  ;  and  they 
find  in  the  depths  of  the  soul,  and  among  its  necessary  ideas, 
what  they  reckon  the  most  solid  and  conclusive  of  all  arguments. 
There  are  ideas  carrying  with  them  a  feeling  of  necessity,  such 
as  those  of  infinity,  of  immensity,  and  eternity,  which  seem  to 
point  to  a  being  necessarily  existing,  and  to  whom  these  qualities 
can  be  ascribed  as  attributes*     But  for  the  purpose  at  present 


*  In  musing  on  divine  tilings,  it  occurred  to  the  meditative  spirit  of  Anselm, 
that  it  might  be  possible  to  find  a  single  argument  complete  in  itself,  and  needing 
no  other  for  its  confirmation.  Man  is  able  to  form  a  conception  of  something, 
than  which  nothing  greater  can  be  conceived ;  and  Anselm  argues,  from  the  very 
nature  of  the  conception,  that  this  something  must  exist  in  reality,  as  well  as  in 
the  intelligence.  Descartes,  in  prosecuting  his  method  of  proving  every  other 
truth  from  a  single  principle  of  consciousness,  has  constructed  a  similar  argument. 


«  INTRODUCTION. 

in  view,  it  is  enough  to  insist  that  it  is  'by  the  human  conscious- 
ness and  intelligence  that  the  idea  of  a  personal,  a  spiritual,  and 
an  all-wi^e  God  is  suggested,  and  by  which  there  is  furnished 
the  most  convincing  evidence  of  his  being,  and  of  some  of  his 
highest  perfections.* 

Fourthly,  There  are  the  moral  qualities  of  man. 

We  refer  more  particularly  to  the  conscience.  This  conscience 
is  in  all  men.  Man  has  not  only  powers  of  understanding,  such 
as  the  memory,  the  imagination,  and  the  judgment — not  only 
feelings  and  emotions,  such  as  love,  hope,  fear — he  has  likewise 
a  higher  faculty  of  sense,  which  judges  by  its  own  law  of  every 
other  principle  of  the  mind,  and  claims  authority  over  it.  Just 
as  all  men  think  and  reason  by  the  powers  of  the  understanding, 
and  as  all  men  feel  by  their  emotional  nature,  so  all  men  have 
some  sense  (it  may  be  very  faint  and  imperfect)  of  the  distinction 
between  good  and  evil,  by  means  of  the  moral  power  or  powers 
with  which  God  has  endowed  them. 

For  the  proof  of  the  existence  of  the  conscience,  we  appeal 
with  Butler  and  Mackintosh  to  the  consciousness.  We  have  onlv 
to  compare  our  nature  with  that  of  the  brute  creation,  to  discover 
at  once  that  there  is  some  such  principle  in  the  human  mind. 
The  lower  animals  wre  find  so  far  resembling  man  that  they  are 
possessed  of  certain  appetites  and  propensities,  but  they  have  no 
regulating,  in  short,  no  moral  principle.  Following  and  gratify- 
ing their  spontaneous  impulses,  they  find  that  no  blame  attaches 
to  them,  and  that  they  are  troubled  by  no  reproaches  or  com- 
punctions of  conscience.     But  let  man  proceed  to  gratify  the 

He  argues  that  the  very  idea  in  the  mind  of  the  infinite,  the  perfect,  implies  the 
existence  of  an  infinite  and  a  perfect  being.  Dr.  Samuel  Clarke  has  given  a  more 
elaborate  demonstration.  He  maintains  that,  because  something  now  exists, 
something  must  have  existed  from  eternity;  that  there  cannot  have  been  from 
eternity  a  succession  of  changeable  and  dependent  beings  ;  and  that  as  the  mind 
cannot  get  rid  of  the  ideas  of  infinite  space  and  time,  so  there  must  be  an  infinite 
and  eternal  substance  of  which  these  are  modes.  We  doubt  much  whether  these 
ideas  or  principles  in  man's  mind  do  of  themselves  prove  the  existence  of  a  living 
God ;  but  when  his  being  has  been  established  otherwise,  as  by  the  argument  from 
order  and  design,  they  lead  us  to  clothe  him  with  infinite  perfections.  (See  Pro- 
sologium  of  Anselm ;  Descartes'  Method,  p.  iv.,  and  Meditations,  iii. ;  Clarke  on 
Attributes.) 

*  See  some  remarks  on  the  Logical  Nature  of  the  Tiieistic  Argument  in 
Appendix  I. 


SOURCES  OF  OUR  IDEA  OF  GOD.  9 

appetites  and  passions  of  his  nature  to  excess,  and  in  an  irregular 
way,  and  he  meets  with  some  check,  (it  may  be  a  feeble  one,) 
warning  him  at  the  time,  and  followed  by  reproach  ;  something 
which,  if  it  does  not  proclaim  aloud,  at  least  whispers  in  accents 
loud  enough  to  be  heard,  that  he  is  doing  wrong.  Unable,  it 
may  be,  to  stem  the  strong  current  of  the  evil  passions,  this  con- 
science is  among  them  like  a  breaker  in  the  midst  of  the  stream, 
which,  if  it  does  not  stop  the  torrent,  at  least  announces  its  own 
existence  and  its  purpose  by  the  agitation  which  it  produces. 

Now,  the  conscience  is  a  ready  and  powerful  means  of  sug- 
gesting the  idea  of  God  to  the  mind.  We  believe  that  it  is  by 
it,  rather  than  by  any  careful  observation  of  nature,  material  or 
spiritual,  that  mankind  have  their  thoughts  directed  to  God. 
It  is  not  so  much  by  what  he  sees  around  him,  as  by  what  he 
feels  within,  that  man  is  led  to  believe  in  a  ruler  of  the  world. 
A.  conscience  speaking  as  one  having  authority,  and  in  behalf  or 
God,  is  the  monitor  by  which  he  is  reminded  most  frequently 
and  emphatically  of  his  Governor  and  his  Judge. 

It  seems  to  be  possible  to  build,  upon  the  very  fact  of  the 
existence  of  the  conscience,  an  independent  argument  in  favour 
of  the  being  of  God.  The  existence  of  the  law  in  the  heart 
seems  to  imply  the  existence  of  a  lawgiver. 

Whatever  may  be  thought  of  this,  it  is  certain  that  the  con- 
science affords  evidence  that  God,  proven  on  other  grounds  to 
exist,  must  approve  of  moral  excellence.  We  are  constrained 
to  believe  that  he,  who  planted  the  conscience  in  our  bosoms, 
loves  the  virtue  which  it  would  lead  us  to  love.  We  are  forced 
to  the  conclusion,  that  he  who  stirred  up  these  reproaches  in 
our  breasts,  himself  hates  the  sin  which  they  would  lead  us  to 
hate.  By  the  analogy  of  human  design,  we  infer  in  the  universe 
the  operation  of  a  mightier  designer ;  and  by  the  analogy  of 
man's  moral  sentiments,  we  conclude  that  the  Creator  of  the 
universe  is  possessed  of  those  moral  qualities  by  which  he  is  not 
only  the  maker  and  sustainer  of  all  things,  but  their  righteous 
Governor  and  their  Judge. 

Now,  such  seem  to  be  the  four  natural  sources  from  which  the 
human  mind  derives  its  idea  of  the  Divine  Being.*     Viewed 

*  In  fact,  the  idea  of  God  is  commonly  first  suggested  by  parents  or  guardians, 
who,  again,  may  have  derived  it  from  tradition  or  revelation.  But  when  the  mind 
begins  to  think  for  itself,  it  finds  evidence  and  illustration  in  the  way  we  have 
pointed  out.    The  Scriptures  declare,  that  some  knowledge  of  God  can  be  derived 


10  INTRODUCTION. 

separately,  the  arguments  drawn  from  these  sources  are  not  all 
conclusive,  or  equally  conclusive ;  one  may  be  considered,  per- 
haps, merely  as  suggestive,  and  another  as  confirmatory  ;  one  as 
a  proof  of  the  existence  of  God,  and  another  as  an  illustration 
of  the  possession  of  certain  attributes. 

Each  class  of  objects  furnishes  its  quota  of  evidence.  The 
physical  works  of  God  give  indications  of  power  and  skill.  The 
providence  of  God  exhibits  a  governing  and  controlling  energy. 
Our  spiritual  natures  lift  us  to  the  conception  of  a  living,  a  per- 
sonal, and  spiritual  God. 

These  three  classes  of  objects,  (deferring  the  consideration  oi 
the  fourth  for  a  little,)  as  bringing  before  us  nature  animate  and 
inanimate,  and  the  relation  between  them,  establish  the  bene- 
volence as  well  as  the  wisdom  of  God.  The  phenomena  which 
prove  the  existence  of  God,  also  demonstrate  that  he  delights  in 
the  happiness  of  his  creatures.  For  it  is  conceivable  that  the 
world  might  have  been  filled  with  adaptations  as  wonderful  as 
any  of  the  existing  ones,  but  all  of  them  of  a  diametrically 
opposite  character.  The  exquisitely  formed  joints  of  the  animal 
frame  might,  in  the  very  delicacy  of  their  organism,  have  com- 
municated the  more  exquisite  pain.  The  plants  of  the  earth 
might  have  grown  to  nourish  the  bodies  of  animals,  only  as  the 
food  spread  through  the  organs  to  torture  every  member.  The 
sunbeams,  instead  of  gladdening  all  nature,  might  have  struck 
every  living  being  as  with  a  succession  of  spear-points  to  harass 
and  annoy.  How  delightful  to  find  that  every  adaptation  indi- 
cating design  also  indicates  benevolence,  and  that  we  have  as 
clear  evidence  of  the  goodness  as  of  the  very  existence  of  God  ! 

Let  it  be  observed,  too,  that,  proceeding  upon  these  classes  of 
objects,  the  mind,  as  its  general  conceptions  expand,  will  also 
have  its  idea  of  God  expanded.  When  nature  is  viewed  in  a 
narrow  spirit,  it  may  leave  the  impression  that  there  is  an  un- 
seemly warfare,  and  that  there  are  numberless  contradictions  in 
the  universe.  The  flowers  which  spring  up  to-day  are  blighted 
on  the  morrow.  The  product  of  the  sunshine  and  the  dews  is 
often  destroyed  by  the  storms.  The  winds  of  heaven,  and  the 
waves  of  the  ocean,  look  at  times  as  if  they  delighted  in  con- 
tending with  each  other.     Hence  we  find  the  heathens  placing 

from  nature,  and  they  come  to  us  as  the  word  of  God.  Eom.  i.  20 — "  For  the 
visible  things  of  God  are  clearly  seen,"  &c. 


SOURCES  OF  OUR  IDEA  OF  GOD.  11 

a  separate  god,  with  a  distinctive  character  and  purpose,  over 
every  separate  element.  There  is  the  god  of  the  rivers,  the  god 
of  the  winds,  and  the  god  of  the  ocean,  and  these  are  supposed 
to  feel  pleasure  in  thwarting  and  opposing  each  other.  The 
light  of  knowledge,  as  it  rises,  dispels  these  phantoms,  and  dis- 
closes, among  apparent  incongruities «and  contentions,  a  unity  of 
purpose  indicating  a  unity  of  being  in  the  Creator  and  Governor 
of  all  things. 

Modern  research  has  served*  to  expand  this  conception  by 
pointing  out  the  links — often  invisible  at  the  first  glance — which 
connect  every  one  part  of  God's  works  with  every  other,  and 
thereby  demonstrates  that  all  nature  has  been  fabricated  by  one 
hand,  and  is  governed  by  one  Lord.  It  is  being  established 
that  every  part  of  the  plant  and  animal  has  been  constructed 
after  a  pattern  form,  and  that  there  is  a  unity  of  plan  running 
through  all  organized  beings.  The  same  Being  who  made  man, 
formed,  it  is  evident,  the  animals  which  minister  to  his  comfort. 
Animal  life,  again,  is  dependent  on  vegetable  life,  and  vegetable 
life  is  dependent  on  the  soil  and  atmosphere  ;  and  thus  the  wide 
earth  is  seen  to  be  one  great  whole.  But  terrestrial  objects  are 
also  dependent  on  the  seasons,  and  the  seasons  are  produced  by 
the  relation  between  the  earth  and  the  sun  ;  and  the  great  whole 
is  thus  enlarged  so  as  to  include  the  sun.  The  strength  of  the 
animal  muscles  is  suited  to  the  size  of  the  earth ;  and  the  con- 
tinued existence  of  the  plants  of  the  earth,  and  of  animal  life, 
is  dependent  on  the  length  of  the  day  and  of  the  year,  and 
these  are  occasioned  by  the  lawrs  and  adjustments  of  the  solar 
system.  The  solar  system,  again,  is  manifestly  connected  in 
the  government  of  God  with  other  systems  ;  for  it  appears  that 
our  sun  is  advancing  nearer  to  certain  stars,  and  moving  away 
from  others,  and  that  in  obedience  to  laws  which  regulate  other 
suns  and  systems  of  suns.  This  line  of  argument  stretches  out 
to  the  most  distant  parts  of  the  known  universe.  He  who  made 
the  muscle  of  my  limb,  made  the  earth  on  which  I  walk,  and 
the  great  luminary  round  which  the  earth  revolves,  and  the 
grand  galaxy  in  which  the  sun  moves.  He  who  made  my  eye, 
made  the  light  which  comes  to  it ;  and  he  who  made  the  light, 
made  the  sun  which  sheds  that  light,  and  also  the  distant  star, 
which  has  taken  thousands  of  years  to  send  its  rays  across  the 
immeasurable  space  that  intervenes. 


12  INTRODUCTION. 

Such  phenomena  help  us  to  comprehend,  so  far  as  finite  crea- 
ture can  comprehend,  the  omnipresence  of  God.  The  human 
imagination,  bold,  and  venturesome  though  it  be,  feels  as  if  it 
could  not  penetrate  the  depths  of  space  which  astronomy  dis- 
closes. Its  wing  becomes  weary  when  it  has  reached  distances 
which  light  requires  many  thousand  years  to  traverse.  Geology, 
again,  as  has  been  remarked,  does  for  time  what  astronomy  does 
for  space,  and  leads  back  the  mind  into  a  past  eternity,  far  as  it 
is  able  and  willing  to  follow. 

And  it  is  not  to  be  overlooked,  that,  altogether  independently 
of  such  physical  discoveries,  the  mind,  by  its  own  native  power, 
can  reach  widely  into  the  infinite.  "  Think  of  space,  we  see  it 
stretching  beyond  the  world,  beyond  our  system,  beyond  the 
farthest  limits  of  creation ;  and  every  bound  we  affix  to  it  only 
carries  us  to  the  unbounded  beyond.  Think  of  time,  all  the 
limits  of  duration  do  but  suggest  the  illimitable  eternity.  Think 
of  dependent  existence,  and  we  sink  lower  and  lower  from  one 
stage  of  dependence  to  another,  till  we  rest  only  in  the  indepen- 
dent, the  absolute.  Think  of  finite  being,  what  is  it  but  an 
endless  paradox  without  infinite  being  ?  Think  of  cause,  what 
does  it  end  in  but  the  causa  causarum,  the  spring  and  source  ot 
all  things  ?"* 

"  As  the  idea  of  God  is  removed  farther  from  humanity  and 
a  scattered  polytheism,  it  becomes  more  intense  and  profound  as 
it  becomes  more  universal,  for  the  infinite  is  present  to  every- 
thing. If  I  fly  into  the  uttermost  parts  of  the  earth,  it  is  there : 
also,  if  we  turn  to  the  east  or  the  west  we  cannot  escape  from  it. 
Man  is  thus  aggrandized  in  the  image  of  his  Maker."f 

Still,  when  it  has  reached  this  point,  and  combined  these 
three  classes  of  phenomena,  the  human  mind  is  not  satisfied, 
for  it  feels  as  if  there  must  be  much  in  the  character  of  God  on 
which  these  objects  can  cast  little  or  no  light.     In  particular,  it 

*  Morell's  Modern  Philosophy.  Note.  2d  Edit.  It  is  at  this  place,  if  we  do 
not  mistake,  that  the  idea  of  the  Infinite  so  much  dwelt  on  by  the  German  philo- 
sophers, comes  in.  The  capacity  of  the  human  mind  to  form  such  an  idea,  or 
rather  its  intuitive  belief  in  an  Infinite,  of  which  it  feels  that  it  cannot  form  an 
adequate  conception,  may  be  no  proof  (as  Kant  maintains)  of  the  existence  of  an 
Infinite  Being,  but  it  is,  we  are  convinced,  the  means  by  which  the  mind  is  enabled 
to  invest  the  Deity,  shewn  on  other  grounds  to  exist,  with  the  attribute  of  Infinity  ; 
that  is,  to  look  on  his  being,  power,  goodness,  and  all  his  perfections  as  infinite. 

t  Hazlitt. 


,    SOURCES  OF  OUR  IDEA  OF  GOD.  13 

is  anxious  to  know  what  are  his  moral  qualities,  and  what  the 
moral  relation  subsisting  between  him  and  man.  There  are, 
besides,  doubts  and  perplexities  which  the  mind  must  entertain, 
but  which  it  feels  that  it  cannot  solve.  Why  these  afflictive 
dispensations  of  the  Divine  Providence  ?  Why  such  extensive 
suffering  ?  Why  such  a  separation  between  man  and  his 
Maker  ?  The  mind  feels  as  if  it  must  have  left  some  element 
out  of  calculation  ;  nor  will  it  rest  satisfied  till,  by  the  aid  of 
the  moral  law  in  the  heart,  (being  the  fourth  object,)  it  rises  to 
the  contemplation  of  a  God  who  loves  virtue  and  hates  vice,  and 
whose  government  is  all  ordered  with  the  view  of  encouraging  the 
one  and  discouraging  the  other,  and  this  by  reason  of  a  perfection 
as  essential  to  his  nature  as  his  omnipresence  or  his  benevolence. 

It  requires  an  observation  of  the  whole  of  these  four  classes 
of  objects  to  convey  a  full  and  adequate  idea  of  the  Divine 
character.  Leave  out  the  first,  and  we  have  no  elevating  idea 
of  the  divine  skill  and  intelligence.  Sink  the  second  out  of 
sight,  and  the  God  that  we  acknowledge  cannot  be  distinguished 
from  the  universe.  Leave  out  the  third,  and  he  becomes  a  brute 
unconscious  force,  or  at  best  a  mere  name  for  an  aggregate  of 
laws  and  developments.  Discard  the  fourth  class  of  objects, 
and  we  strip  him  of  some  of  the  very  brightest  rays  of  his  glory, 
and  leave  a  physical  without  a  moral  power,  and  a  weak  bene- 
ficence unguarded  by  justice. 

When  the  mind  is  fixed  on  any  one  of  these  groups  to  the 
exclusion  of  the  others,  the  conception  becomes  limited,  partial, 
and  so  far  erroneous.  When  it  thinks  only  of  the  physical  works 
of  nature,  it  is  apt  to  conceive  of  their  Maker  as  a  mere  mecha- 
nical power.  W7hen  confined  to  his  providence,  it  regards 
nothing  beyond  his  foresight,  his  sagacity,  and  the  sovereignty 
of  his  will.  In  looking  simply  at  his  spiritual  nature,  his  close 
and  intimate  connexion  with  his  creatures  is  forgotten.  When 
conscience  is  the  sole  monitor,  he  is  regarded  by  his  sinful 
creatures  with  unmingled  feelings  of  awe  and  fear.  The  mere 
physical  inquirer  does  not  rise  beyond  the  idea  of  ski  J  and  con- 
trivance. The  believer  in  an  exclusive  Providence  makes  his 
Deity  guilty  of  favouritism  and  caprice.  Those  who  look  solely 
to  the  spiritual  nature  of  God  are  tempted  to  remove  him  into  a 
region  of  dreamy  meditation  and  useless  affection.  The  religion 
of  conscience  lands  us  in  superstition  and  will-worship. 


14  INTRODUCTION. 

Not  unfrequently  a  few  objects  belonging  to  a  particular  class 
are  fixed  on,  and  the  view  may  become  contracted  to  the  very 
narrowest  point ;  and  God  (as  among  the  Caffres)  may  be  re- 
garded as  little  more  than  a  rain-sender,  or  there  may  be  no- 
thing beyond  a  vague  conception,  suggested  by  the  conscience^ 
of  some  power  that  is  to  be  dreaded  because  of  the  evil  which  it 
may  inflict. 

The  beautiful  rays  coming  from  the  face  of  God,  and  shining 
in  such  loveliness  around  us,  are  reflected  and  refracted  when 
they  come  in  contact  with  the  human  heart.  Each  heart  is  apt 
to  receive  only  such  as  please  it,  and  to  reject  the  others.  Hence 
the  many-coloured  aspects,  some  of  them  hideous  in  the  extreme, 
in  which  God  is  presented  to  different  nations  and  individuals. 
Hence  the  room  for  each  man  fashioning  a  god  after  his  own 
heart.  An  evil  conscience,  reflecting  only  the  red  rays,  calls  up 
a  god  who  delights  in  blood.  The  man  of  fine  sentiment,  re- 
flecting only  the  softer  rays,  exhibits  from  the  hues  of  his  own 
feelings  a  god  of  mere  sensibility,  tender  as  that  of  the  hero  of 
a  modern  romance.  The  man  of  glowing  imagination  will  array 
him  in  gorgeous  but  delusive  colouring,  and  in  the  flowing 
drapery  of  majesty  and  grandeur,  beneath  which,  however,  there 
is  little  or  no  reality.  The  observer  of  laws  will  represent  him 
as  the  embodiment  of  order,  as  blank  and  black  as  the  sun  looks 
when  we  have  gazed  upon  him  till  we  are  no  longer  sensible  of 
his  brightness.  It  is  seldom  in  the  apprehensions  of  mankind 
that  all  the  rays  so  meet  as  to  give  us  the  pure  white  light,  and 
to  exhibit  God,  full  orbed  in  all  his  holiness  and  goodness,  as 
the  fountain  of  lights  in  whom  is  no  darkness  at  all. 

It  is  a  favourite  maxim  of  not  a  few  living  philosophers,  as, 
for  example,  of  M.  Cousin,  that  error  is  always  partial  truth. 
That  it  frequently  is  so  cannot  be  doubted.  But  this  circum- 
stance should  not  be  urged,  as  these  parties  sometimes  employ 
it,  to  excuse  error.  It  ought  at  least  to  have  been  remarked, 
that  partial  truth  is  often  the  most  dangerous  of  all  errors. 
Every  one  knows  how  a  garbled  quotation  may  be  the  most 
effectual  perversion  of  an  author's  meaning,  and  how  a  partial 
representation  of  an  incident  in  a  man's  life  may  be  the  most 
malignant  of  all  calumnies.  It  is  in  taking  a  partial  view  of 
truth  that  human  prejudice  finds  the  easiest  and  most  effectual 
method  of  gaining  its  end.     If  persons  do  not  wish  to  retain 


SOURCES  OF  OUR  IDEA  OF  GOD.  15 

God  in  their  knowledge,  they  can  easily  contrive  to  form  a  god 
to  their  own  taste,  by  directing  their  eyes  to  certain  objects,  and 
shutting  them  to  all  others. 

"  Man,"  says  one  of  the  most  ingenious  and  profound  writers 
of  these  latter  days — we  mean  Vinet — "  has  never  failed  to 
make  a  god  of  his  own  image,  and  his  various  religions  have 
never  surpassed  himself ;  for,  if  by  these  he  imposes  on  himself 
acts  and  privations  which  he  would  not  otherwise  impose,  those 
toils  which  are  of  his  own  choice  do  not  raise  him  above  him- 
self. Hence  those  religions  do  not  change  the  principles  of  his 
inner  life :  they  subject  him  to  an  external  sway  only  to  leave 
him  free  at  heart."  Our  ideas  of  God  thus  originating  in  our 
own  hearts  can  never  be  made  to  rise  higher  than  the  fountain 
from  which  they  have  flowed.  Hence  the  need  of  a  revelation 
from  a  higher  source  to  make  known  a  God,  not  after  the  image 
of  man,  but  a  God  after  whose  image  of  heavenly  descent  man 
may  remodel  his  character,  and  thereby  exalt  it  to  a  heavenly 
elevation  and  brightness. 

Nor  will  the  progress  of  secular  knowledge  counteract  this 
native  tendency  of  the  human  heart.  It  may  direct  the  stream 
into  a  new  channel,  but  it  cannot  dry  up  the  native  propensi- 
ties of  the  heart  in  which  this  inclination  originates.  The 
fundamental  human  error,  which  assumes  one  form  in  the  ruder 
and  uncivilized  ages  and  nations  of  the  world,  takes  another 
shape  in  those  countries  which  have  made  greater  progress  in 
the  arts  and  sciences.  Polytheism  vanishes  only  that  pantheism 
may  take  up  its  place ;  and  the  sole  difference  between  them 
is,  that  while  many  errors  lodge  in  the  former,  all  errors  take 
refuge  in  the  latter.  God  ceases  to  be  regarded  with  supersti- 
tious awe ;  but  it  is  only  that  he  may  be  esteemed  a  mechanical 
force,  a  philosophic  abstraction,  or  a  splendid  imagination,  as 
gorgeous,  but  as  unsolid  too,  as  a  gilded  cloud.  In  the  former 
case,  God  did  possess  an  influence  on  the  character,  at  times  for 
evil,  but  at  times  for  good :  under  these  latter  aspects,  he  exer- 
cises no  influence  whatever,  but  is  a  nonentity  in  power,  as  he 
is  conceived  to  be  a  nonentity  in  reality. 

Of  the  four  sources  from  which  mankind  derive  their  idea  of 
God,  the  first  and  the  third  are  attended  to  with  greater  or  less 
care  by  the  thinking  mind  of  the  present  day.  Hence  we  find 
that,  in  the  common  views  of  the  Divine  Being,  there  are  ex- 


16  INTRODUCTION. 

alted  conceptions  of  his  power,  wisdom,  and  goodness,  and  of 
his  nature  as  a  spiritual  intelligence.  It  may  be  doubted,  how- 
ever, whether  the  second  and  fourth  classes  of  objects  have  been 
so  habitually  contemplated,  or  whether  they  have  not,  to  some 
extent  at  least,  been  overlooked.  In  some  former  ages  it  might 
have  been  more  needful  to  elevate  the  popular  view  of  the 
Divine  intelligence  and  goodness  and  spirituality,  by  means  of 
the  works  of  God  in  the  physical  and  mental  worlds.  In  the 
present  age  it  may  be  more  beneficial,  after  the  light  which  has 
been  thrown  on  these  topics,  to  direct  attention  to  the  pheno- 
mena which  speak  of  the  wise,  the  benevolent,  and  righteous 
Governor.  At  certain  times,  and  in  certain  countries,  the  reli- 
gion of  authority  and  the  religion  of  conscience  have  had  too 
extensive  sway;  but  in  modern  Europe,  with  the  bonds  of 
government  loosened,*  and  the  free  assertion  of  the  rights  of 
man,  there  has  been  a  greater  tendency  to  sink  the  qualities  of 
the  Governor  and  the  Judge.  We  propose  in  this  Treatise  to 
give  the  Government  of  God  its  proper  place,  and  bring  it  out 
into  full  and  prominent  relief. 

SECT.  II. — OBJECT  OF  THIS  TREATISE  ;  INVESTIGATION  OF  THE 
PROVIDENCE  OF  GOD,  AND  THE  CONSCIENCE  OF  MAN,  OR  THE 
EXTERNAL  AND  INTERNAL  GOVERNMENT  OF  GOD. 

There  are  two  important  classes  of  phenomena  to  pass  under 
notice  in  this  Treatise. 

The  first  is  presented  in  the  physical  world  in  its  relation  to 
the  constitution  and  character  of  man,  or  what  we  may  call  the 
providence  of  God. 

The  second  is  presented  in  the  constitution  and  character  of 
man  in  their  relation  to  God,  and  more  particularly  the  moral 
facidty  or  moral  sense.  We  use  this  general  language,  because, 
so  far  as  the  object  at  present  contemplated  is  concerned,  we  do 
not  care  by  what  name  this  moral  quality  of  our  nature  may  be 
designated — whether  it  be  called  the  moral  sense  or  the  moral 
faculty — the  conscience,  or  the  law  in  the  heart.  By  whatever 
name  it  may  be  distinguished,  this  property  is  certainly  one  of 
the  most  wondrous  in  our  mental  constitution.  The  workings 
of  conscience  in  the  soul,  besides  furnishing  a  curious  subject  of 
*  Thiers  says,  that  now  "  kings  reign,  but  do  not  govern." 


OBJECT  OF  THIS  TREATISE.  17 

inquiry,  carry  us  down  into  the  very  depths  of  our  nature, 
and  thence  upwards  to  some  of  the  highest  of  the  Divine 
perfections. 

The  external  and  internal  governments  of  God  are  thus  to 
pass  under  review ;  and  truly  we  know  not  how  the  full  charac- 
ter of  God  can  he  gathered  from  his  works  without  a  careful 
survey  of  both  these  departments  of  his  operations. 

A  great  number  of  works,  distinguished  for  learning  and 
ability,  have  been  written  in  our  age  to  demonstrate  the  exist- 
ence of  God,  and  illustrate  such  perfections  of  his  nature  as  his 
power,  his  benevolence,  and  his  wisdom.  But  while  these 
treatises  have  established  to  the  satisfaction  of  every  mind 
capable  of  conviction  that  a  God  exists,  and  that  he  is  possessed 
of  a  certain  class  of  attributes,  the  most  of  them  do  not  exhibit, 
and  do  scarcely  profess  to  exhibit,  to  our  view  the  complete 
character  of  God.  Natural  theologians  have  drawn  the  proper 
inference  from  the  particular  laws  and  nice  adaptations  of  part 
to  part  to  which  their  attention  has  been  called ;  but  they 
have  not  studied  the  general  combinations,  or  the  grand  results 
in  the  providence  of  God ;  and  the  view  which  they  have 
given  of  the  Divine  character  is  contracted,  because  their 
field  of  observation  is  narrow  and  confined.  Enlarging  the 
sphere  of  vision,  and  viewing  the  separate  machinery  as  com- 
bined in  God's  providence,  we  hope  to  rise  to  a  fuller  and  more 
complete  conception  of  the  character  of  God,  than  can  possibly 
be  attained  by  those  whose  attention  has  been  confined  to 
isolated  fragments  and  particular  laws,  such  as  fall  under  the 
eye  of  the  physical  inquirer,  or  of  the  theologians  who  use  the 
materials  which  physical  research  has  furnished. 

Natural  theology  is  the  science  which,  from  an  investigation 
of  the  works  of  nature,  would  rise  to  a  discovery  of  the  character 
and  will  of  God,  and  of  the  relation  in  which  man  stands  to 
him.  In  prosecuting  this  science,  the  inquirer  proceeds,  (or 
should  proceed,)  in  the  same  way  as  he  does  in  every  other 
branch  of  investigation.  He  sets  out  in  search  of  facts  ;  he  ar- 
ranges and  co-ordinates  them,  and  rising  from  the  phenomena 
which  present  themselves  to  their  cause,  he  discovers,  by  the 
ordinary  laws  of  evidence,  a  cause  of  all  subordinate  causes. 
But  in  following  such  a  method  it  is  required  that  we  do  not 
overlook  any  of  the  more  important  facts.     An  omission  of  an 

B 


18  INTRODUCTION. 

essential  circumstance  in  the  premises,  or  in  taking  down  the 
data  of  the  problem,  must  issue  in  a  perplexing  defect  or  fatal 
blunder  in  the  result. 

There  is  nothing  wonderful  in  the  circumstance,  that  the 
theologians  of  nature  have  not,  in  their  researches,  seen  the 
higher  moral  qualities  of  God  ;  for  they  could  not  expect  to  find 
any  traces  of  them  in  the  territories  which  they  have  visited. 
When  we  wish  to  ascertain  the  moral  character  of  a  fellow-man, 
we  look  to  something  else  than  his  mere  works  of  mechanical 
and  intellectual  skill.  These  can  exhibit  nothing  but  those 
qualities  from  which  they  have  sprung — the  ability  of  the  hand 
or  of  the  understanding ;  and  when  we  are  bent  on  knowing  his 
character,  we  inquire  into  the  use  which  he  makes  of  his  talents, 
and  of  the  products  and  results  of  them,  and  generally  into  his 
conduct  towards  other  beings,  towards  God  and  towards  man. 
Our  natural  theologians  have  acquired  about  as  enlarged  and 
accurate  a  view  of  the  higher  perfections  of  the  Divine  Being, 
as  they  might  obtain  of  the  moral  and  religious  character  of  an 
architect  by  inspecting  the  building  which  he  had  planned ;  of 
an  artisan  by  examining  the  watch  constructed  by  him  ;  or  of  a 
husbandman,  by  walking  over  the  field  which  he  has  cultivated. 
A  visit  paid  to  the  workshop  of  an  ingenious  mechanic  may 
bring  under  our  notice  all  the  qualities  of  the  fine  workman  ; 
but  meanwhile,  we  have  no  materials  to  guide  us  in  forming  an 
idea  of  his  kindness  or  his  integrity,  his  temperance  or  his  god- 
liness. In  order  to  discover  whether  he  possesses  these  qualities, 
we  must  inquire  into  the  use  which  he  makes  of  the  fruits  of 
his  ingenuity ;  we  must  follow  him  into  the  busy  market  and 
the  social  circle,  into  his  family  and  his  closet.  Now,  if  we 
would  discover  the  infinitely  glorious  moral  perfections  of  the 
Supreme  Being,  we  must  in  like  manner  enter  other  regions 
than  those  into  which  the  mere  classifier  of  the  laws  of  nature 
would  conduct  us.  In  investigating  the  laws  of  inanimate  na- 
ture, we  may  expect  to  find — and  we  do  find — innumerable 
traces  of  lofty  intelligence  ;  in  examining  the  different  parts  of 
the  animal  frame,  we  may  hope  to  find  marks — and  we  discover 
them  in  abundance — of  that  benevolence  which  makes  the  pos- 
sessor delight  in  the  happiness  of  sentient  being ;  but  if  we 
would  discover  the  justice  and  holiness  of  God,  and  the  qualities 
which  distinguish  the  righteous  and  benevolent  Governor,  we 


OBJECT  OF  THIS  TREATISE.  19 

must  look  to  the  bearing  of  his  works  and  dispensations  r.n  the 
state  and  character  of  man. 

In  conducting  this  inquiry,  we  shall  find  ourselves  in  the 
midst  of  a  topic  of  most  momentous  import,  but  from  which 
modern  scientific  men  have  generally  drawn  back,  as  if  they  felt 
unable  or  unwilling  to  grapple  with  it,  because  too  high  for 
their  understanding  to  rise  to  it,  or  too  humbling  to  their  pride 
to  stoop  down  to  it.  The  subject  referred  to  is  the  relation  in 
which  God  stands  towards  man.  Our  literati  and  secular  philo- 
sophers are,  in  general,  willing  to  acknowledge  that  a  God  exists; 
but  they  have  very  confused  and  ill-assorted  ideas  as  to  the  re- 
lation in  which  he  stands  towards  the  human  race.  Yet  surely 
this  latter  subject  is  not  inferior  in  philosophical  interest  or 
practical  importance  to  the  other,  or  indeed  to  any  other.  The 
character  of  God  cannot  well  be  understood  by  us  till  we  consi- 
der it  in  its  relation  to  man.  How  do  I  stand  in  reference  to 
that  Being,  of  whose  greatness  and  goodness  I  profess  to  enter- 
tain such  lofty  ideas  ?  How  does  He  stand  affected  towards  me  ? 
We  know  not  if  the  settlement  of  the  question  of  the  existence 
of  God  be  to  us  of  greater  moment  than  the  settlement  of  this 
other  question,  "What  is  the  relation  in  which  we  stand  to 
Him  ?  This  is  certain,  that  the  settlement  of  the  one  question 
should  instantly  lead  to  the  settlement  of  the  other ;  and  the 
inquirer  has  stopped  half-way,  and  acquires  little  that  is  truly 
valuable,  nothing  satisfactory  to  the  heart,  till  he  pursue  his  re- 
searches into  this  second  field  which  lies  contiguous  to  the  other. 

This  second  inquiry  must  bring  under  our  special  notice  and 
consideration  the  character  of  man,  not,  it  is  true,  metaphysically 
or  analytically,  or  in  all  its  aspects,  but  in  its  bearings  towards 
God.  The  consideration  of  the  nature  of  man,  and  more  par- 
ticularly of  his  moral  qualities,  will  again  conduct  us  upward  to 
the  contemplation  of  the  rectitude  or  the  moral  excellence  of 
God.  It  is  by  placing  the  two  together,  the  character  of  God 
and  the  character  of  man,  as  it  were  in  juxtaposition,  the  one  over 
against  the  other,  that  we  can  best  understand  both.  This  rela- 
tion of  God  and  man,  the  one  towards  the  other,  is  the  depart- 
ment of  divine  and  human  knowledge  in  which,  in  our  humble 
opinion,  this  generation  has  most  need  to  be  instructed. 

We  live  in  an  age  which  boasts  of  its  light  and  knowledge ; 
but  it  may  be  doubted  how  far  those  who  are  most  disposed  to 


20  INTRODUCTION. 

be  vain-glorious,  have,  after  all,  very  deep  or  comprehensive 
views  of  the  character  of  the  Deity.  We  laugh  at  the  narrow 
and  superstitious  views  entertained  of  God  by  savage  nations,  and 
in  the  darker  ages  of  the  history  of  the  world ;  but  perhaps  we 
might  be  as  profitably  employed  in  inquiring  whether  we  have 
ourselves  attained  to  ideas  that  are  correct  and  adequate. 

In  this,  or  indeed  in  any  age,  there  are  comparatively  few  dis- 
posed absolutely  to  deny  the  existence  of  a  superior  or  a  supreme 
Being.  We  would  not  say  that  the  idea  of,  and  belief  in,  the 
existence  of  God  are  innate  in,  or  connate  with,  the  human  soul ; 
but  they  are  the  natural  result  of  the  exercise  of  the  human 
faculties  and  intuitions  in  the  circumstances  in  which  man  is 
placed.  Degraded  though  man  be,  he  shrinks  from  Atheism 
with  almost  as  strong  an  aversion  as  he  does  from  annihilation. 
Mankind  cannot  be  brought  to  believe,  that  there  are  not  traces 
in  the  world  of  something  higher  than  blind  fate  and  the  freaks 
of  chance.  Their  felt  weakness,  their  very  pride,  cannot  brook 
the  thought  of  there  being  no  presiding  power  to  overlook  their 
destiny.  There  are,  besides,  certain  periods  of  helplessness  in 
every  man's  life,  when  the  soothing  accents  of  human  affection 
cannot  be  found,  or,  what  is  worse,  can  afford  no  comfort ;  and 
then  the  heart,  whatever  may  be  the  sophistries  with  which  the 
head  is  warped,  will  insist  on  believing  that  there  is  a  God  who 
sympathizes  with  us  and  pities  us.  Rather  than  abandon  the 
thought  that  some  Being  above  nature  is  interested  in  them, 
mankind  will  assume  that  the  heavenly  bodies  have  some  myste- 
rious communication  with  the  earth ;  that  the  sun  goes  round 
the  whole  globe  just  to  see  their  actions  ;  that  there  are  planets 
presiding  over  their  birth,  and  determining  their  life  and  death ; 
or  they  will  people  the  woods  and  the  darkness  of  night  with 
spirits,  and  reckon  the  breezes  their  whispers  of  communication 
regarding  us,  and  the  storms  the  expression  of  their  indignation 
against  those  who  have  offended  them.  If  for  ever  without  a 
companion,  man  would  sometimes  prefer  an  unpleasant  one ; 
and,  on  a  like  principle,  he  would  worship  a  god  supposed  to  be 
possessed  of  many  hideous  qualities,  rather  than  be  driven  to 
regard  this  universe  as  a  blank  and  uninhabited  void. 

But  while  man  is  led  naturally  to  believe  in  God,  he  is  not 
led  so  naturally  to  entertain  just  and  spiritual  conceptions  of  his 
character.     It  is  a  fact,  that  almost  all  nations  have  retained 


OBJECT  OF  THIS  TREATISE.  21 

some  idea  of  a  god,  but  it  is  also  a  fact,  explain  it  as  we  please, 
that  all  nations  have  fallen  into  the  most  unworthy  conceptions 
of  his  nature  and  connexion  with  the  human  race.  We  believe 
the  second  of  these  facts  to  be  the  natural  result  of  man's  cha- 
racter, as  much  as  the  other.  False  religions,  appearing  in 
every  age  and  nation,  have  assumed  forms  as  varied  as  the  tastes 
and  prejudices,  as  the  habits  and  manners  of  mankind,  or  as 
the  climates  in  which  they  lived,  but  all  tending  to  darken  and 
degrade  the  purity  of  the  Divine  nature. 

Man  must  have  a  god ;  but  he  forms  his  own  god,  and  he 
makes  it  a  god  after  his  own  image.  Instead  of  forming  his 
own  character  after  the  likeness  of  God,  he  would  fashion  a  god 
after  his  own  likeness.  It  appears  that  at  a  very  early  age  in 
the  history  of  the  world,  there  was  a  tendency  to  carnalize  the 
Divine  character  by  representing  it  in  symbol ; — in  brute  sym- 
bol, as  among  the  ancient  Egyptians ;  in  the  more  glorious  of 
the  inanimate  works  of  God,  as  among  the  Persians ;  and  in 
images  of  man's  own  construction,  as  among  the  majority  of 
nations.  The  very  beauty  of  the  works  of  God  stole  away  men's 
minds  from  the  author,  and  they  lifted  up  an  eye,  first  of  rever- 
ence, and  then  of  worship,  to  the  sun  and  moon  and  host  of 
heaven,  considered  by  the  philosophers  as  emanations  of  Deity, 
and  by  the  multitude  as  the  deities  themselves.  Others  were  more 
impressed  with  the  heroic  and  the  ancient,  and  deified  the  heroes 
of  bygone  ages,  the  renowned  warriors  of  their  country,  the  pro- 
moters of  the  arts  and  sciences.  So  strong  was  this  desire  to 
bring  down  celestial  things  to  the  level  of  terrestrial  things,  that 
in  the  Egyptian  mythology  heaven  was  merely  a  celestial  Egypt, 
watered  by  a  celestial  Nile,  lightened  by  a  celestial  sun,  and 
divided  into  the  same  number  of  gnomes  as  the  earthly  country, 
and  each  of  these  the  peculiar  residence  of  the  god  worshipped 
in  the  corresponding  district  of  the  terrestrial  Egypt.  Error,  as 
it  advanced,  grew  in  waywardness  and  strength,  till,  in  the  ages 
of  Homer  and  Hesiod,  the  prevailing  religions  of  Europe  became 
completely  anthropomorphic;  and  Mars  was  just  the  embodi- 
ment of  the  popular  admiration  of  warlike  achievement,  and 
Venus  that  of  the  popular  conception  of  love.  So  complete  at 
length  did  this  adaptation  to  human  nature  become,  that  thieves 
have  had  their  patron  god  in  Mercury,  and  the  Thugs  divinities 
pleased  with  the  murders  which  they  committed. 


22  INTRODUCTION. 

The  Greek  philosopher  Xenophanes,  ridiculing  this  anthropo- 
morphic spirit,  was  in  the  way  of  referring  satirically  to  the 
Ethiopians,  who  represented  their  gods  with  flat  noses,  and  as  of 
a  black  colour,  and  to  the  Thracians7  who  gave  them  blue  eyes 
and  ruddy  complexions.  It  may  be  doubted,  however,  whether 
the  philosophers  themselves  rose  above  this  natural  tendency. 
The  Stoic  divinities  are  just  a  personification  of  the  stern  method 
of  the  Stoic  character ;  and  the  idle  pleasure-loving  gods  of  the 
Epicureans  are  the  expression  of  the  tastes  and  desires  of  the 
votaries  of  that  philosophy. 

In  ancient  Judea,  and  in  certain  modern  nations,  the  people 
have  been  kept  from  falling  into  such  errors,  by  what  professes 
to  be  a  revelation  from  heaven.  What  jy.iUosophy  never  could 
have  effected,  so  far  as  the  great  body  of  the  people  is  concerned, 
has  been  accomplished  by  what  appeared  to  the  subtle  Greek  as 
foolishness.  In  our  own  country,  the  light  of  heaven  has  been 
let  in  upon  the  dark  groves  where  our  forefathers  offered  human 
sacrifices,  and  all  ghostly  terrors  have  vanished  before  it.  But 
error  has  not  always  disappeared  when  it  has  changed  its  forms. 
While  the  old  body  remains,  it  can  suit  its  dress  to  the  fashion 
of  the  time  and  place.  Our  hearts  would  now  revolt  at  the  very 
idea  of  bowing  the  knee  to  an  idol  chiselled  by  Phidias  himself. 
With  minds  enlarged  by  extended  knowledge,  we  choose  rather 
to  exalt  the  character  of  God  ;  for  the  more  elevated  he  is,  the 
less  is  our  pride  offended  by  being  obliged  to  pay  him  honour. 
But  while  the  popular  conception  of  his  character  never  omits 
these  his  physical  attributes  of  power,  omnipresence,  and  eternit}T, 
it  is  a  question  worthy  of  being  put  and  answered,  whether  it 
does  not  leave  out  other  qualities  equally  essential  to  his  nature, 
such  as  holiness,  righteousness,  and  grace — that  is,  undeserved 
mercy  bestowed  in  consistency  with  justice.  We  fear  that  there 
is  something  repulsive  to  many  in  these  phrases ;  no,  not  in  the 
phrases  themselves,  but  in  the  very  idea  which  these  words  em- 
body, and  which  cannot  be  expressed  in  all  their  depth  of 
meaning  by  any  others.  While  man  wishes  to  believe  that 
there  is  a  God,  he  does  not  feel  delight  in  contemplating  a  God 
of  infinite  purity  ;  and  the  mind  turns  away  from  the  view  as 
the  eye  does  from  the  full  splendour  of  the  noonday  sun.  It 
thus  happens,  that  while  mankind  do  wish  to  believe  that  there 
is  a  God,  they  do  not  wish  to  believe  in  the  living  and  true  God. 


OBJECT  OF  THIS  TREATISE.  23 

They  love  to  dwell  on  an  existing  God,  but  they  do  not  love  the 
contemplation  of  the  actually  existing  God.  Driven  by  these 
opposing  impulses — now  by  the  one,  and  now  by  the  other — the 
religious  history  of  the  world  is  a  very  vacillating,  as  well  as  a 
very  melancholy  one.  Man  is  ever  fondly  clinging  to  the  idea 
of  a  God ;  and  ever  endeavouring,  at  the  same  time,  to  bring 
that  idea  into  accordance  with  his  own  wishes,  his  narrow  in- 
terests and  character.  The  religious  history  of  mankind  may  be 
summed  up  in  this — that  it  is  a  continually  repeated  attempt  to 
adapt  the  character  of  God  to  those  who  feel  that  they  cannot 
do  without  him. 

It  is  worthy  of  being  inquired,  whether  this  strong  tendency 
of  our  nature  may  not  be  at  work  in  this  present  age,  as  it  has 
been  operating  in  all  past  ages ;  and  whether  our  literary  and 
scientific  men  are  not  holding  forth  to  themselves  and  to  the 
popular  view  the  Divine  Being  shorn  of  some  of  the  brightest 
of  his  perfections,  because  too  dazzling  to  their  eyes ;  whether 
the  God  adored  by  some  be  not  as  different  from  the  truly 
existing  God  as  the  gods  of  the  heathens  were  :  be  not,  in  short, 
the  creature  of  men's  imagination,  just  as  truly  as  the  images 
worshipped  in  idolatrous  nations  are  the  workmanship  of  men's 
hands. 

Taking  a  wider  range  than  the  writers  on  natural  theology 
are  wont  to  do,  and  embracing  within  our  view  a  larger  field, 
we  hope  to  rise,  by  means  of  the  very  works  of  God,  to  a  grander 
and  more  elevated  conception  of  the  Divine  character  than  those 
have  attained  who  look  to  mere  physical  facts  and  laws.  The 
inquiry  will  present  numberless  proofs  of  universal  wisdom  and 
benevolence.  When  we  enter  this  council-chamber  of  the  Lord 
of  the  universe,  we  shall  find  clearer  evidence  of  a  distinct 
affection  of  love  reigning  in  his  bosom,  than  can  possibly  be 
discovered  from  the  adaptations  of  inanimate  nature,  and  of  the 
functions  and  limbs  of  animals  which  constitute,  as  it  were,  the 
mere  outworks  of  nature.  We  shall  rise  beyond  law  to  life, 
and  beyond  life  to  love.  Mounting  still  higher,  we  shall  pass 
beyond  even  love,  and  reach  a  moral  principle,  or  rather  a  moral 
purpose  and  affection.  In  judging  of  human  character  we  dis- 
tinguish between  the  man  of  mere  tenderness  of  nerve  and  sen- 

TV     ' 

sibility,  and  the  man  of  virtue  ;  and  in  studying  the  Divme 
government,  we  shall  have  occasion  to  shew  that  God  is  distin- 


24  INTRODUCTION. 

guished  not  only  by  his  beneficence,  but  also  by  his  holiness 
and  justice. 

Nor  will  we  disguise,  from  the  very  commencement  of  this 
Treatise,  that  we  expect  to  establish,  by  a  large  induction,  that 
the  views  given  by  the  works  of  God  of  the  character  of  their 
Maker  and  Governor,  do  most  thoroughly  harmonize  with  the 
doctrines  contained  in  that  book  which  professes  to  be  a  revela- 
tion of  God's  will  to  man.  On  rising  from  the  common  treatises 
which  have  been  written  on  the  subject  of  natural  theology  and 
ethical  philosophy,  every  intelligent  reader  has  felt  as  if  the  view 
there  given  of  the  Deity  was  different  from  what  is  disclosed  in 
that  book  which  claims  to  be  the  Word  of  God ;  in  short,  as  if 
the  God  of  natural  was  different  from  the  God  of  revealed 
religion.  Persons  who  take  their  views  of  God  from  mere 
scientific  treatises,  and  the  current  literature,  are  apt  to  feel  as 
if  the  God  of  the  Bible  was  too  stern  and  gloomy.  An  acute 
thinker  of  the  present  day  speaks  of  "  the  dark  shadow  of  the 
Hebrew  God,"  and  the  phrase  is  significant  of  the  feelings 
cherished  by  multitudes  who  breathe  and  live  in  the  lighter 
literature  of  our  age.  On  the  other  hand,  persons  who  adopt 
their  ideas  of  God's  character  from  the  volume  of  inspiration, 
are  apt  to  regard  the  representations  of  Deity  in  works  of  natural 
theology  as  meagre  and  unsatisfactory  in  the  extreme.  All  who 
have  sipped  of  our  current  literature,  or  drunk  into  our  science, 
and  then  turned  to  the  Bible,  have  felt  this  discrepancy,  though 
they  may  not  be  able  to  state  wherein  it  consists.  That  felt 
difference  cannot  be  expressed  so  fully,  we  think,  as  by  one  word 
frequently  employed  in  Scripture,  but  carefully  banished  from 
the  phraseology  of  scientific  theology  ;  that  word  is  HOLINESS 
— a  phrase  denoting  one  of  the  most  essential  of  the  Divine 
attributes,  but  to  which  no  reference  is  made  by  the  common 
writers  on  natural  religion.  If  traces  of  this  property  of  the 
Divine  nature  are  to  be  found  anywhere  in  the  works  of  God, 
they  are  to  be  discovered,  it  is  manifest,  in  the  dealings  and  dis- 
pensations of  God  towards  the  human  race,  and  in  the  moral 
law  inscribed  by  him  on  every  human  breast. 

If  these  views  be  substantiated  by  the  considerations  to  be 
adduced,  there  will  thereby  be  furnished  a  link  to  connect  the 
works  with  the  Word  of  God,  and  natural  with  revealed  religion; 
there  will  be  a  bridge  to  join  two  territories,  which  have  been 


OBJECT  OF  THIS  TltiiATlSJK.  25 

separated  by  a  wide  chasm.  If  it  be  true  that  the  Divine 
government  of  God,  rightly  interpreted,  gives  the  same  view  of 
the  character  of  God,  and  the  relation  in  which  he  stands  to 
man,  as  the  New  Testament,  then  we  have  a  strong  and  very 
satisfactory  evidence  in  favour  of  the  divine  origin  of  the  Scrip- 
tures, and  the  religion  embodied  in  them.  The  events  of  history, 
the  observations  of  travellers,  and  the  testimony  of  unimpeach- 
able witnesses,  have  all  been  made  to  yield  their  quota  of  evidence 
in  behalf  of  the  truth  of  Christianity ;  we  are  now  to  inquire,  if 
some  important  corroborative  proof  may  not  be  supplied,  by  the 
method  of  the  Divine  administration  in  the  world  without  and 
the  world  within  us. 

We  are  to  be  engaged  in  reading,  it  must  be  acknowledged, 
the  half-effaced  writing  on  columns  sadly  broken  and  disjointed, 
showing  but  the  ruins  of  their  former  grandeur  ;  nevertheless, 
with  care,  we  trust  to  be  able  to  decipher  sufficient  to  prove,  that 
the  writing  is  of  the  same  import  as  that  brighter  and  clearer 
revelation  which  God  has  given  of  himself  in  the  volume  of  his 
Word ;  and  by  their  sameness,  to  demonstrate  that  both  have 
been  written  by  the  same  unerring  hand. 


26  INSTRUCTIVE  VIEWS  OF  GOD 


CHAPTER  II. 

GENERAL  ASPECT  OF  THE  DIVINE  GOVERNMENT  \  PHENOMENA 
PRESENTED  BY  THE  PROVIDENCE  OF  GOD  AND  THE  CON- 
SCIENCE OF  MAN,  THOUGH  COMMONLY  OVERLOOKED. 

SECT.   I. PHENOMENA  OFTEN  OMITTED. — THE    EXISTENCE  OF  EX- 
TENSIVE SUFFERING  BODILY  AND  MENTAL. 

An  inhabitant  of  a  distant  part  of  our  world  or  of  another 
world,  let  us  suppose,  visits  Europe,  and  inspects  some  of  our 
finer  cathedrals,  such  as  that  of  York  or  Cologne.  Admiring  the 
buildings,  he  is  led  to  inquire  narrowly  into  their  architecture, 
and  he  observes  how  stone  is  fitted  to  stone,  and  buttress  to  that 
which  it  supports,  and  how  all  the  parts  are  in  beautiful  adap- 
tation one  to  another.  Does  he  know  all  about  these  cathedrals, 
when  he  has  completed  this  class  of  observations  ?  In  one  sense, 
he  knows  everything ;  he  knows  that  the  building  material  of 
the  one  is  a  species  of  limestone,  and  of  the  other,  trachyte ; 
every  stone  and  pillar  and  window  has  been  examined  by  him, 
and  he  has  admired  the  beautiful  proportions  of  the  whole  fabric. 
But  if  he  has  gone  no  further  in  his  inquiries,  he  has  but  a 
meagre  idea,  after  all,  of  these  temples.  There  are  higher  ques- 
tions :  What  is  the  use  of  this  chapter-house  ?  of  this  crypt  ? 
of  this  lovely  chapel  or  chancel  ?  The  stranger  has  no  proper 
idea  of  the  cathedrals,  till,  rising  beyond  the  minute  inspection 
of  stones,  and  columns,  and  aisles,  he  contemplates  the  grand 
results  and  uses,  and  observes,  how  this  part  was  for  the  burial 
of  the  distinguished  dead — this  other  part  for  the  kneeling  of 
the  worshippers — this  third  part  for  the  convocation  of  the 
priests — this  fourth  part  for  the  dispensation  of  the  holiest  rite 
of  the  Christian  Church — and  the  whole  for  the  worship  of  God. 


PRESENTED  BY  HIS  GOVERNMENT.  27 

Now,  we  bold  that  the  investigator  of  the  mere  facts  and  laws 
of  nature  is  engaged  in  a  work  resembling  that  of  this  supposed 
visitant,  when  be  is  examining  the  stones  and  arches  of  the 
building.  We  are  not  inclined  to  depreciate  this  work  of  the 
scientific  inquirer,  and  we  are  not  doing  so  when  we  maintain, 
that  if  he  would  rise  to  a  correct  view  of  the  character  of  God, 
he  must  enlarge  the  sphere  of  his  vision  ;  his  eye  and  his  mind 
must  take  in  other  phenomena,  and  he  must  look  at  the  object 
served  by  this  temple,  (for  such  it  is,)  whose  architecture  be  has 
been  observing  and  admiring. 

In  investigating  these  two  topics — the  providence  of  God,  and 
the  moral  principles  of  man's  nature — we  trust  to  rise  above  the 
inadequate  conceptions  of  the  Divine  character  so  commonly- 
entertained  in  the  present  age  ;  we  shall  ascend  beyond  mechan- 
ism to  life,  beyond  laws  to  a  lawgiver,  and  beyond  even  legisla- 
tion to  an  active  and  orderly  government,  with  its  judicial  and 
executive  departments.  Instead  of  an  image  of  marble  set  up 
on  a  pedestal  by  the  hands  of  man  to  be  admired,  we  shall  con- 
template a  living  and  reigning  king  seated  upon  a  throne, 
wielding  authority  over,  and  issuing  commands  to,  all  creatures. 

This  world  is  not  in  the  state  in  which  the  intelligent  and 
benevolent  mind  would  have  expected  it  to  be  a  priori.  Let 
the  problem  be  :  given  a  God  of  infinite  power  and  wisdom,  to 
determine  the  character  of  the  world  which  he  would  fashion — 
and  man's  solution  would  present  a  very  different  world  from 
the  actual  one.  True,  the  problem  is  confessedly  of  too  high 
an  order  for  human  intellect  to  solve  it  correctly ;  but  every 
approximation  which  he  makes,  only  impresses  him  the  more 
with  wonder,  awe,  and  fear,  when  he  compares  the  results  at 
which  he  arrives  with  the  actual  results — as  we  must  believe 
them — of  heavenly  intelligence  and  love,  in  the  existing  world 
in  which  he  is  placed. 

We  maintain  that  the  solution  of  this  mystery  is  to  be  found, 
so  far  as  it  can  be  found,  in  the  careful  consideration  of  the  de- 
partments of  God's  works  in  which  the  mystery  appears.  The 
mystery,  as  existing  in  the  government  of  God,  demands  a  more 
earnest  investigation  of  that  government  ;  and  underneath  the 
very  folds  of  the  mystery,  we  may  discover  the  truths  which 
conduct  to  a  right  explanation. 

'  They  that  deny  the  depravity  of  human  nature  are  involved 


28  INSTRUCTIVE  VIEWS  OF  GOD 

in  perplexity,  and  speak  of  the  subject  of  the  Divine  government 
with  such  doubt,  confusion,  and  embarrassment,  as  increase  scep- 
ticism in  themselves,  while  they  too  often  produce  it  in  their 
admirers."  Kobert  Hall,  in  this  language,  refers  to  only  one  of 
several  kindred  phenomena,  which  should  be  taken  into  account 
in  order  to  a  comprehension  of  the  government  of  God. 

There  are  five  phenomena,  or  rather  classes  of  phenomena, 
which  must  be  contemplated  by  all  who  would  comprehend  the 
state  of  this  world  in  its  relation  to  God.  Two  of  these  are 
presented,  at  least  more  especially,  by  the  providence  of  God ; 
other  two  by  the  human  soul,  and  more  particularly  by  its 
moral  qualities  ;  and  an  intermediate  one  by  the  combined  view 
of  both. 

/  1.  Extensive    suffering,    bodily   and 
I.  The  providence  of  GoTl  presents  us     j  mental. 

with —  |  2.  Restraints  and  penalties  laid  on  man. 

».  God  at  a  distance  from  man. 


II.  The  soul  of  man  in  its  relation  to 
God  shews  us — 


4.  Man  at  a  distance  from  God. 

5.  A  schism  in  the  human  soul. 


We  are  aware  that,  in  bringing  these  classes  of  objects  under 
notice,  especially  at  so  early  a  stage  of  our  inquiry,  we  run  the 
risk  of  giving  our  work  a  repulsive  aspect  in  the  eyes  of  many. 
It  may  seem  as  if  we  were  delineating  our  God  with  the  grim 
and  sombre  visage  which  settles  on  the  face  of  many  of  the  hea- 
then idols.  Should  this  impression  be  unfortunately  produced 
on  the  minds  of  any,  we  trust  that  it  will  vanish  long  before  our 
investigations  are  brought  to  a  close.  If  we  seem  to  an  age  dis- 
tinguished for  the  lightness  of  its  literature — this  age  of  literary 
dissipation,  demanding  stronger  and  yet  stronger  stimulants — to 
act  like  the  ancient  Egyptians  when  they  brought  coffins  into 
their  feasts,  we  claim  at  least  to  be  actuated  by  the  same  motives  ; 
it  is  for  the  purposes  of  solemn  instruction  to  a  generation  which 
needs  to  be  instructed,  (though  it  demands  rather  to  be  enter- 
tained ;)  and  while  we  produce  the  stern  memorials  of  man's 
weakness,  we  also  proffer  the  food  which,  in  our  view,  is  fitted  to 
remove  it.  If  we  are  constrained  at  some  parts  of  our  Treatise 
to  give  a  prominence  to  certain  darker  phenomena,  it  is  because 
others  have  left  them  out  of  sight ;  and  with  our  exhibition  of 
the  graver  and  more  commanding  and  authoritative  features  of 


PRESENTED  BY  HIS  GOVERNMENT.  29 

the  Divine  countenance,  we  shall  show  a  smile  of  love  ever 
playing  upon  it,  and  encouraging  the  heart  of  the  most  timid 
to  approach. 

In  these  sections  our  object  is  to  state  the  facts,  and  point  out 
the  unsatisfactory  nature  of  the  common  explanations,  rather 
than  ourselves  to  offer  any  positive  solution.  It  is  from  a  com- 
bined view  of  the  whole,  at  a  future  stage  of  our  inquiries,  that 
the  correct  conclusion  must  be  derived. 

It  will  not  be  denied  that  there  is  pain,  and  pain  to  an  extra- 
ordinary extent,  in  the  world.  It  is  not  the  mere  circumstance 
that  there  is  suffering  that  is  so  wonderful,  but  the  circumstance 
that  it  is  so  great  and  widely  spread.  Why  is  there  pain  in  the 
world  at  all  ?  This  is  a  difficult  question  to  answer  ;  but  per- 
haps not  so  difficult  as  this  other,  Why  does  it  exist  to  such  an 
extent  ?  Could  not  God  have  created  a  world  in  which  there 
was  no  suffering  to  tear  the  bodily  frame,  and  no  grief  to  cloud 
and  shadow  the  soul  ?  Or  suppose  that  we  are  able  to  explain 
this  high  mystery,  and  show  that  there  are  some  incidental  ad- 
vantages to  be  derived  from  the  existence  of  pain,  the  question 
again  presses  itself  upon  us,  Why  is  this  suffering  so  great — so 
universal  ?  Why  do  the  clouds  of  disappointment  cast  shadows 
so  dark  and  so  broad  over  the  prospects  of  human  life  ?  These 
blackening  shadows  must  surely  proceed  from  some  dark  and 
dense  body  coming  between  us  and  the  light  which  shines  so 
brightly  and  so  beautifully  from  these  heavens ;  and  what  can 
that  opposing  and  obstructing  obstacle  be  ?  Whence  the  uni- 
versal liability  to  disease  ?  Why  such  wide-spread  famine  and 
plague  and  pestilence  ?  Why  is  this  little  infant  visited  with  such 
grievous  and  continued  agony  under  the  very  eye  of  a  mother, 
whose  heart  meanwhile  is  torn  as  much  as  is  the  bodily  frame  of 
the  beloved  child  ?  Come  with  us,  ye  sentimental  believers  in 
the  perfection  of  man  and  of  this  world,  to  the  bedside  of  this 
person,  tortured  continually  with  excruciating  agony,  without 
the  possibility  of  relief  being  afforded.  For  many  years  has  he 
been  tossed  there  as  you  now  see  him,  and  scarcely  remembers  a 
single  moment's  respite  being  allowed  him,  or  balmy  sleep  resting 
on  these  eyes  to  drown  his  suffering  in  oblivion.  We  know  that 
ye  turn  away  from  the  sight,  and  leave  the  spot  as  speedily  as 
possible :  but  it  is  good  for  us  to  visit  the  house  of  mourning 


&? 


30  PHENOMENA  COMMONLY  OVERLOOKED. 

and  we  fix  you  here,  till  we  have  put  some  questions,  which  you 
may  answer  better  when  so  situated  than  when  in  the  house  of 
mirth,  and  when  you  look  on  this  world  through  the  gorgeous 
colouring  with  which  romance  and  poetry  stain  every  ray  that 
passes  through  them.  Why,  then,  this  protracted  suffering  ? 
Perhaps  you  tell  us  that  it  is  to  teach  the  sufferer  purity  and 
patience.  Alas  !  the  groans  that  break  from  him,  the  bitterness 
of  every  remark  that  escapes  his  lips,  all  shew  that  these  are 
lessons  which  he  has  not  learned  ;  and  without  a  special  heaven- 
sent blessing,  it  is  difficult  to  discover  how  they  should  be  the 
natural  result  of  circumstances  which  seem  rather  fitted  to  irri- 
tate the  spirit  into  peevishness,  to  exasperate  it  into  fretfulness, 
or  harden  it  into  sulkiness  and  rebellion.  And  when  the  scene 
darkens  from  twilight  obscurity  into  the  blackness  of  night,  and 
the  house  of  disease  becomes  the  house  of  death,  the  phantoms 
thicken  and  increase.  Whence  these  terrors  of  death,  and  the 
awful  gloom  which  hangs  over  the  sepulchre  ?  Why  should  it 
be  so  appointed  that  man's  earthly  existence  should  ever  lead  to, 
and  end  in  a  dark  cavern,  into  which  all  men  must  enter,  but 
into  which  the  eye  of  those  who  remain  behind  cannot  follow 
them,  and  from  which  no  one  returns  to  tell  what  are  his  state 
and  destiny  ? 

Ingenious  speculators,  we  are  aware,  have  discovered  that 
many  advantages  follow,  in  the  overruling  providence  of  God, 
from  the  existence  of  certain  real  or  apparent  evils.  We  freely 
admit  that  there  is  force  in  some  of  these  theories.  In  respect, 
in  particular,  of  the  death  of  the  lower  animals,  we  allow  that 
there  may  be  advantages  in  having  a  succession  of  generations 
rather  than  continuing  the  existing  one,  and  such  a  system  of 
course  implies  the  dissolution  of  the  individual.  Nay,  we  may 
freely  admit  that  there  is  force  in  all  the  theories  advanced,  so 
far  as  they  establish  the  beneficence  of  God  in  bringing  good 
out  of  evil,  though  we  may  deny  that  they  explain  the  existence 
of  the  evil.  But  let  us  examine  some  of  these  speculations. 
We  take  up  those  of  Dr.  Thomas  Brown,  because  they  seem  as 
ingenious  and  plausible  as  any  that  have  fallen  under  our  notice* 

"  If,"  says  he,  "  by  exposure  to  the  common  causes  of  disease, 
we  were  to  expose  ourselves  only  to  a  succession  of  delightful 
feelings,  how  rash  would  those  be  who  are  even  at  present  rash  ?" 
*  See  Lect.  93  of  Pbil.  of  Human  Mind. 


SUFFERING,  BODILY  AND  MENTAL.  31 

When  one  hears  such  a  solution  as  this  seriously  proposed,  he 
is  tempted  to  ask,  whether  such  an  end,  the  preventing  of  rash- 
ness, does  really  require  such  an  expenditure  of  painful  means  ; 
or  whether  the  same  end  might  not  have  been  attained  by  other 
means  less  apparently  repugnant  to  the  character  of  God.  But 
the  offered  solution  starts  other  and  deeper  inquiries.  Not  satis- 
fied with  hearing  from  the  Indian  that  the  world  rests  on  a 
huge  animal,  we  follow  him  with  the  inquiry,  On  what  does  the 
animal  rest  ?  and  not  satisfied  with  hearing  that  the  liability  to 
pain  often  prevents  mankind  from  exposing  themselves  to  dis- 
ease, we  go  on  to  inquire,  why  such  common  causes  of  disease  ? 
— why  such  rashness  on  the  part  of  those  who  are  acknow- 
ledged to  be  rash  ? — why  such  alarming  evils  requiring  these 
awful  warnings  of  their  approach  ?  Acknowledging,  as  all  must, 
that  there  are  incidental  advantages  arising  from  the  existence 
of  suffering  in  the  present  dispensation  of  things,  there  is  the 
other  problem  starting  into  view — Why  is  there  such  a  con- 
stitution of  things  ?  Why  the  need  of  one  evil  to  counteract 
another  ?  It  is  the  existence  of  so  many  evils  that  is  the  grand 
mystery  in  this  world ;  and  it  is  not  cleared  up  by  showing 
that  one  evil  is  incidentally  or  intentionally  the  preventive  of 
another. 

But  the  same  ingenious  thinker,  after  stating  the  various  ex- 
planatory considerations  adduced  by  Paley,  is  candid  enough  to 
add — "All  the  advantage,  however,  which  is  thus  produced  by 
the  painful  maladies  of  life,  I  readily  confess,  would  be  too  slight 
to  put  in  the  balance  with  the  amount  of  pain  which  arises  from 
these  maladies."  "  The  true  preponderating  weight,  compared 
with  which  every  other  circumstance  seems  almost  insignifi- 
cant, *  *  *  is  the  relation  of  pain  to  moral  character.  It  is  of 
advantage  to  the  moral  character  in  two  ways,  as  warning  from 
vice  by  the  penalties  attached  to  vicious  conduct,  and  as  giving 
strength  to  virtue  by  the  benevolent  wishes  which  it  awakes 
and  fosters,  and  by  the  very  sufferings  themselves,  which  are 
borne  with  a  feeling  of  moral  approbation." 

Now,  this  solution,  while  it  approaches  a  little  nearer  the 
truth,  is  still  far  distant  from  it.  It  introduces  into  the  calcu- 
lation a  most  important  element,  which  Paley  and  others  have 
left  very  much  out  of  account — the  consideration  of  virtue  and 
vice  :  but  it  does  not  allow  that  element  its  legitimate  weight 


32  PHENOMENA  COMMONLY  OVERLOOKED. 

Dr.  Brown  lias  evidently  discovered  the  unsatisfactory  nature  of 
the  common  explanations :  and  he  has  farther  observed,  that  the 
economy  of  the  world  has  a  reference  to  the  discouragement  of 
vice,  and  the  encouragement  of  virtue ;  but  while  the  truth  is 
thus  opening  upon  him,  he  refuses  to  follow  it.  The  light  of 
which  he  has  now  got  a  glimpse,  might  have  conducted  him  to 
the  discovery  of  that  perfection  of  the  Divine  character  which 
leads  God  to  withdraw  himself  from  vicious  conduct ;  but,  scared 
by  the  dazzling  brightness  of  such  an  attribute,  and  losing  sight 
of  it  when  it  was  urging  him  onwards,  he  hastens  to  betake  him- 
self to  the  softer  and  flowery  regions  of  sentiment  and  poetry,  in 
which  he  ever  delights  to  expatiate,  and  in  which  he  affords  rest 
to  himself  and  his  readers  after  they  have  followed  him  in  his 
feats  of  intellectual  agility. 

So  far  as  Dr.  Brown  conceives,  that  in  the  infliction  of  suffer- 
ing God  has  a  reference  to  the  encouragement  of  virtue  and  the 
discouragement  of  vice,  his  views  are  clear  and  solid  and  con- 
sistent. He  has  discovered  that  there  is  a  greater  evil  than 
mere  pain,  and  a  greater  good  than  mere  pleasure  ;  and  that  the 
pain  which  exists  in  the  world  cannot  be  explained  except  in  its 
relation  to  the  greater  good  and  the  greater  evil.  Instead  of  the 
"greatest  happiness"  principle,  he 'might  have  seen  what  we 
may  call  the  "  greatest  morality"  principle  ;  and  the  idea,  if  pro- 
secuted, would  have  conducted  him  to  a  firm  resting-place,  on 
which  he  might  have  contemplated  the  full  character  of  God, 
and  His  dealings  towards  a  world  which  would  have  been  seen 
by  him  as  fallen.  But  when  the  grand  reconciling  truth  was 
just  dawning  upon  his  mind,  he  turns  to  another  truth  which 
has  but  sufficient  importance  to  distract  his  attention.  "  There 
will,"  he  says,  "  be  a  quicker  disposition  to  feel  for  others  when 
we  ourselves  have  suffered."  Does  God,  then,  create  pain  that 
men  may  feel  for  it  ?  "  The  grief  of  one,"  he  adds,  "  is  the  pity 
of  many,  and  there  must  be  grief  if  there  be  pity."  Does  he 
mean  to  say  that  the  grand  aim  of  God  in  inflicting  grief  was  to 
cause  pity  on  the  part  of  many  ?  Surely  if  this  had  been  the 
whole,  or  the  chief  end  contemplated  by  God,  it  might  have 
been  attained  at  a  less  expense  of  pain  and  sorrow.  Besides,  it 
is  not  to  be  forgotten,  that,  if  liability  to  pain  and  sorrow  be  a 
means  of  strengthening  virtue,  it  is  also  a  means  of  encouraging 
vice.     Do  not  all  the  malignant  passions  of  our  nature,  such  as 


SUFFERING,  BODILY  AND  MENTAL.  33 

envy,  jealousy,  and  revenge,  derive  their  main  force  and  motive 
to  action  from  the  circumstance  that  it  is  possible  to  inflict  suf- 
fering, mental  and  bodily  ?  Had  man  been  placed  in  a  state  of 
things  in  which  it  was  not  possible  for  him  to  produce  painful 
sensations  or  feelings,  the  malign  affections  would  not  have 
reigned  with  such  fury  as  they  do  in  a  world  so  constituted  as 
to  admit  of  their  being  gratified.  It  is  the  very  fact  that  our 
fellow-men  are  liable  to  be  injured,  which  is  the  prompting 
occasion  of  scandal,  and  of  the  fearful  contests  and  fiery  feuds 
which  cannot  be  extinguished  except  in  blood.  It  appears,  that 
if  there  are  incidental  advantages  arising  from  the  existence  of 
suffering,  there  are  also  accompanying  disadvantages,  and  these 
latter,  we  fear,  through  the  wickedness  of  the  race,  are  very  con- 
siderably the  greater.  At  least  every  reflecting  mind  will  ac- 
knowledge, that,  when  the  elements  to  be  weighed  and  measured 
are  virtue  and  vice,  it  will  be  difficult  to  get  proper  balances,  and 
a  true  standard  of  measure  ;*  and  difficult,  above  all  tilings,  to 
say  what  is  the  actual  residue  on  the  one  side  or  the  other,  after 
the  proper  subtractions  have  been  made. 

"  If,"  says  the  same  author,  "  the  inhabitant  of  some  other 
planet  were  to  witness  the  kindness  and  solicitude  of  a  father 
for  his  child  in  his  long  watchfulness  and  love,  and  were  then 
to  see  the  same  father  force  the  child,  notwithstanding  its  cries,  to 
swallow  some  bitter  potion,  he  would  surely  conclude,  not  that 
the  father  was  cruel,  but  that  the  child  was  to  derive  benefit 
from  the  potion  which  he  loathed."  This  explanation  is  coming 
still  nearer  the  truth,  but  is  not  pursued  to  its  proper  conse- 
quences. It  proceeds  on  the  idea  that  pain  is  a  medicine  for 
one  who  is  labouring  under  disease,  and  that  a  disease  in  the 
very  nature  of  man.  What  a  picture — what  a  dark  picture  is 
thereby  given  of  our  world  as  labouring  under  a  fearful  malady  ! 
Prosecute  the  idea,  and  it  will  conduct  us  to  truths  from  which 
many  shrink  back  when  they  are  close  upon  them  ;  it  will  ap- 
pear that  God  is  conducting  his  government  as  toward  a  world 
distempered  in  itself,  and  in  a  state  displeasing  to  him.  Does 
not  the  extent  of  the  remedy,  too,  prove  the  extent  of  the  dis- 

*  The  reader  will  remember  the  language  of  Burke — "  Weighing,  as  it  were,  in 
scales  hung  in  a  shop  of  horrors  so  much  actual  crime  against  so  much  contingent 
advantage,  and  after  putting  in  and  out  weights,  declaring  that  the  balance  was 
on  the  side  of  the  advantage." 

C 


34  PHENOMENA  COMMONLY  OVERLOOKED. 

ease,  as  certainly  as  the  number  of  prisons  in  a  country  demon- 
strates the  extent  of  the  crime  ?  Without  at  present  starting 
the  question,  whether  the  suffering  which  God  inflicts  may  not 
be  punitive  as  well  as  remedial,  it  appears  that  the  infliction  of 
it  proceeds  on  the  principle,  that  there  is  a  fearful  evil  of  which 
it  is  the  punishment  or  the  cure.  Has  this  idea  been  followed 
out,  or  rather,  has  it  not  been  speedily  abandoned  after  it  has 
served  a  particular  purpose  ?  It  is  at  least  worthy  of  being 
carried  out  to  its  proper  results,  and  may  conduct  us  to  some 
very  exalted  views  of  the  character  of  God,  and  some  very 
humbling  views  of  the  character  of  man. 

But  leaving  these  subtilties  of  Brown,  we  may  remark  on  the 
general  subject,  that  the  explanations  of  the  kind  at  present  re- 
ferred to,  all  proceed  on  the  principle  that  each  man  is  designed 
by  God,  and  is  bound  in  himself,  to  promote  the  greatest  hap- 
piness of  the  race.  In  regard  to  this  principle,  let  it  be  re- 
marked, that  it  is  more  than  a  mere  selfish  principle — it  is  a 
moral  principle.  There  may  be  nothing  moral  in  the  principle 
which  leads  each  man  to  promote  his  own  happiness  ;  but  when 
it  assumes  this  special  form,  that  man  is  bound  to  contemplate 
the  happiness  of  the  race,  it  becomes  a  moral  principle  ;  and  it 
is  by  the  principle  in  this  its  latter  form  that  any  intelligent  in- 
quirer would  propose  to  explain  the  existence  of  suffering.  God 
has  so  constituted  man,  that  he  feels  that  he  ought  to  submit, 
when  needful,  to  individual  suffering,  in  order  to  promote  the 
general  good ;  and  it  may  be  argued,  that  the  God  who  im- 
planted such  a  principle  in  man's  bosom  must  himself  be  pos- 
sessed of  this  moral  quality,  and  to  an  infinite  degree.  It  may 
seem  a  plausible  explanation  of  human  suffering,  to  urge  how 
expedient  it  is,  that  the  vice  which  produces  pain  should  in  its 
turn  be  visited  with  pain.  But  the  question  recurs,  Wherefore 
is  there  a  state  of  things  in  which  prevailing  vice  can  so  readily 
produce  suffering  ?  It  is  the  liability  to  suffering  which  consti- 
tutes the  mystery,  and  this  difficulty  is  not  removed  by  showing, 
that  pain  may  check  the  means  by  which  pain  is  produced. 
Everything,  in  short,  shows  that  suffering  has  a  reference  to  vice 
and  virtue  fully  as  much  as  to  the  promotion  of  happiness. 

We  hold  that  this  conclusion  is  specially  deducible  from  the 
existence  of  mental  suffering.  The  plausible  explanations  of  the 
bodily  sufferings  of  man  by  "  the  greatest  happiness"  principle, 


RESTRAINTS  AND  PENALTIES.  35 

do  not  admit  of  an  application  to  mental  pain  under  many  of  its 
forms,  especially  when  it  proceeds  from  an  accusing  conscience. 
Certain  mental  affections — certain  lusts  and  passions,  for  instance 
— lead  to  the  most  acute  mental  distress,  naturally  and  neces- 
sarily ;  and  this  distress  may  be  held  as  indicative  of  God's  dis- 
approval of  these  states.  No  man  can  assert,  with  even  the  sem- 
blance of  plausibility,  that  the  misery  in  such  cases  is  appointed 
in  order  to  prevent  greater  misery  ;  for  the  phenomenon  to  be 
explained  is  the  existence  of  the  misery,  either  under  its  milder,  or 
under  its  more  appalling  forms.  It  is  no  explanation  of  the  minor 
acute  distress,  which  follows  the  first  kindling  of  evil  affections, 
to  point  to  the  feet  that  these  evil  affections,  if  cherished,  must 
issue  in  greater  distress.  The  very  proportioning  of  the  mental 
pain  to  the  degree  of  the  sin,  points  the  more  conclusively  and 
emphatically  to  the  divinely-appointed  connexion  between  them. 
The  Divine  indignation  against  sin  in  its  minor  forms  rises  and 
swells  as  the  sin  increases,  and  manifests  itself  in  the  infliction 
of  ever-deepening  misery  ;  and  the  connexion  between  the  cause 
and  the  consequence  is  indicated  by  the  very  fact,  that  as  the 
one  increases,  so  does  the  other — that  as  the  rain  falls,  so  do  the 
floods  swell.  It  is  not  against  the  misery  that  God  is  warning 
us  ;  but  it  is  against  the  sin,  and  by  means  of  the  misery.  A 
voice  from  heaven  could  scarcely  declare  more  clearly,  and  cer- 
tainly could  not  announce  so  impressively,  that  there  are  certain 
mental  affections  which  God  would  brand  with  the  stigma  of 
his  severest  reprobation. 

Enough,  at  least,  has  been  advanced  to  show  that  this  uni- 
versal and  divinely-inflicted  suffering  in  body  and  in  mind 
stands  out  as  a  grand  mystery,  worthy  of  an  attempt  being 
made  to  explain  it ;  and  that  the  common  explanations  throw 
just  so  much  light  upon  its  outskirts  as  to  impress  us  the  more 
with  its  vast  magnitude  and  profundity,  and  with  the  desirable- 
ness of  more  light  being  let  in  to  dispel  the  gloom. 

SECT.  II. — THE  RESTRAINTS  AND  PENALTIES  OF  DIVINE 

PROVIDENCE. 

It  might  be  interesting  to  know  what  are  the  means  which 
God  employs  in  the  government  of  those  worlds  in  which  there 
fe  no  taint  of  evil.     Can  we  be  wrong  in  concluding  that  the 


36  PHENOMENA  COMMONLY  OVERLOOKED. 

main  instrument,  whatever  may  be  the  subsidiary  ones,  is  a 
grand  internal  principle  by  which  the  creature  is  swayed— being 
an  imperative  sense  of  duty,  and  the  love  of  God  reigning  in 
the  soul,  and  subordinating  all  things  to  itself  ?  This  we  must 
believe  to  be  the  bond,  stronger  than  the  gravitation  drawing 
the  planets  to  the  sun,  which  holds  the  pure  intelligences  in 
their  spheres,  and  joins  them  to  the  grand  centre  of  all  wisdom 
and  life. 

But  whatever  may  be  the  means  which  God   employs  in 
o-overning  other  intelligences,  it  is  obvious,  even  at  the  first 
glance,  (and  farther  inquiry  deepens  the  conviction,)  that  this 
is  not  the  way  in  which  he  rules  the  world  in  which  we  dwell. 
Man  is  placed  under  an  economy  in  which  there  are  numberless 
restraints  and  correctives,  medicaments  and  penalties,  all  origi- 
nating in  the  very  constitution  of  the  world,  falling  out  in  the 
order  of  providence,  and  ready  to  meet  him  at  every  turn — now 
with  their  bristling  points  to  stop  his  career,  anon  with  their 
whips  to  punish,  and  forthwith  with  their  counter-moves  to 
frustrate  all  his  labour,  and  throw  him  far  back  when  he  seems 
to  be  making  the  most  eager  progress.     Man  has  liberty  of  will, 
(such  as  all  responsible  beings  must  possess,)  but  he  has  not 
liberty  of  action  in  every  case ;  and  even  when  he  has  freedom 
of  action,  his  actions  are  not  allowed  to  produce  their  contem- 
plated results;  for,  while  he  proposes,  another  interposes  and 
disposes,  and  his  schemes  are  often  made  to  terminate  in  conse- 
quences directly  antagonist  to  those  designed  by  him.     "  Cir- 
cumstances," says  Niebuhr,  in  the  passage  already  quoted,  "which 
are  called  accidental,  combine  in  such  a  wonderful  manner  with 
others  to  produce  certain  results,  that  men  evidently  cannot  do 
what  they  please."     Man  is  hemmed  in,  thwarted,  and  arrested 
on  all  sides.     Restrained  on  either  hand,  there  are  instruments 
lying  ready  all  around  for  his  punishment ;  and  these  are  often 
wielded  by  a  hand  of  fearful  and  irresistible  strength,  or  set  in 
motion  by  latent  powers  possessed  of  electric  velocity. 

We  discover  everywhere  in  this  world  traces  of  design  and 
wisdom  ;  but  of  design  and  wisdom,  so  far,as  the  government  of 
man  is  concerned,  directed  to  the  prevention  or  punishment  of 
evil.  When  we  go  into  a  well-built  and  well-regulated  school, 
hospital,  or  asylum,  into  a  prison  or  house  of  correction,  we  may 
observe  the  most  beautiful  adaptation  of  part  to  part,  and  of 


RESTRAINTS  AND  PENALTIES.  37 

each  part  and  all  the  parts  to  the  whole  ;  and  we  pronounce  the 
building,  its  furniture,  and  the  work  done  in  it,  to  be  perfect, 
but  we  discover  at  the  same  time  that  they  are  accommodated 
to  inmates  who  are  not  regarded  as  perfect.  We  see  everywhere 
vigilance  and  caution,  and  instruments  provided  by  suspicion 
or  fear,  with  means  of  restraint,  of  improvement,  and  of  punish- 
ment, which  would  not  have  been  required  but  for  the  exist- 
ence of  evil ;  and  we  conclude  from  the  very  character  of  the 
building,  and  the  work  which  goes  on  in  it,  that  there  is  igno- 
rance or  poverty,  disease  or  crime,  in  the  dwelling.  We  may 
admire  the  architecture  of  the  fabric,  and  the  mode  of  conduct- 
ing the  establishment,  and  we  may  feel  the  deepest  interest,  too, 
in  the  inmates ;  but  we  observe  that  the  existence  of  evil  is 
everywhere  pre-supposed  in  the  very  provision  made  to  cure,  to 
check,  and  to  punish  it.  Now,  looking  at  this  world  with  an 
observant  eye,  we  find  at  all  times  and  in  every  place  a  singular 
apparatus  of  means,  proceeding  upon  and  implying  the  existence 
of  evil.  It  does  look  as  if  this  world,  under  the  government  of 
God,  were  a  school,  if  we  would  so  use  it,  for  the  improvement 
of  the  inhabitants — or  as  if  it  might  be  a  place  of  restraint 
(where  "  man  is  a  galley-slave,  punished,  but  not  amended  ")  in 
which  the  prisoner  is  confined,  always  with  a  certain  liberty 
allowed  him,  till  a  day  of  judgment.  Without  taking  into 
account  the  existence  of  human  folly  and  wickedness,  our  eye 
will  ever  fix  itself  on  a  machinery,  always  in  motion,  but  seem- 
ingly without  a  purpose  to  serve  by  it — as  useless  as  the  furniture 
of  a  school-room,  of  an  hospital,  or  a  prison,  where  there  is  no 
ignorance  to  remove,  no  disease  to  remedy,  or  crime  to  punish. 
Why  such  abrupt  terminations  to  long  avenues  which  lead  to 
nothing  ? — why  such  "  withered  hopes  that  never  come  to  flower  ?" 
why  such  numberless  and  ever-acting  checks  ?  why  such  sudden 
and  visible  judgments  of  heaven  ?  why  such  bridles  to  curb,  such 
chains  to  bind,  and  such  walls  to  confine,  if  the  inhabitants  of  this 
world  are  reckoned  pure  and  spotless  by  him  who  rules  them  ? 

An  intelligent  visitant,  let  us  suppose,  from  a  remote  island 
of  the  ocean,  or  a  distant  planet  of  our  system,  has  alighted  on 
the  isle  of  St.  Helena,  at  the  time  when  Napoleon  Bonaparte 
was  confined  in  it.  Totally  unacquainted  with  the  previous 
history  of  that  wonderful  man,  he  has  to  gather  all  his  informa- 
tion from  personal  observation  and  inference.     Himself  unno- 


38  PHENOMENA  COMMONLY  OVERLOOKED. 

ticed,  he  walks  about  and  surveys  the  strange  circumstances 
which  present  themselves  to  his  view.  His  attention  is  soon 
fixed  on  an  individual,  discovered  by  him  to  be  the  principal 
personage  on  the  island,  and  he  observes  that  all  the  arrange- 
ments made  by  others  have  a  relation,  more  or  less  directly,  to 
him.  He  would  seem  to  be  the  monarch  of  the  whole  territory, 
and  yet  it  is  evident  that  he  is  confined  and  suspected  on  every 
hand.  He  has  a  certain  degree  of  liberty  allowed,  and  he  is 
ever  asserting  it  and  seeking  its  extension,  while  he  is  jealous  in 
the  extreme  of  the  supposed  attempts  to  deprive  him  of  it,  and 
complaining  loudly  of  the  restraints  laid  upon  him.  It  is  ob- 
served, that  the  persons  by  whom  he  is  surrounded  pay  him  all 
respect  and  deference ;  while  they  are  at  the  very  time  watching 
and  guarding  him,  and  ready,  if  he  go  beyond  prescribed  limits, 
to  resort  to  bolder  measures.  This  personage,  it  is  farther  ob- 
served, has  in  his  manner  an  air  of  dignity  which  impresses  the 
spectator  with  awe,  while  he  has  also  an  air  of  restlessness  and 
discontent  which  moves  him  to  pity.  What  reasonable  conclu- 
sion can  the  traveller  draw  from  this  strange  combination  and 
jumble  of  seeming  contradictions  ?  He  knows  not,  for  a  time, 
what  to  think.  There  are  times  when  he  is  confident  that  this 
individual,  on  whom  all  eyes  are  fixed,  is  a  king ;  but  then  he 
sees  him  watched  and  suspected  as  if  he  was  a  felon.  He  con- 
cludes that  he  may  be  a  bondsman  or  a  prisoner  ;  but  this  con- 
clusion is  confounded  when  he  reflects  that  a  certain  freedom  is 
permitted  him,  that  great  honour  is  paid  him,  and  that  there 
are  traces  of  greatness  and  power  in  his  manner  and  character. 
It  is  possible  that  the  traveller,  after  perplexing  himself  for  a 
time,  may  give  up  all  idea  of  resolving  the  mystery.  Perhaps  it 
may  not  occur  to  him  that  the  opposite  and  seemingly  inconsis- 
tent phenomena  which  present  themselves  may  be  combined  in 
a  consistent  result,  or,  as  the  German  metaphysicians  would  say, 
in  a  higher  unity  ;  but  should  the  idea  occur,  and  he  prosecute 
it  sufficiently  far,  it  will  at  once  conduct  him  to  a  solution  of  all 
his  difficulties,  and  the  truth  will  now  open  to  him,  and  show 
him  in  this  personage  a  fallen  monarch,  with  remains  of  former 
grandeur,  confined  here  for  a  time,  and  with  only  a  certain  de- 
gree of  freedom  and  authority  allowed  him.  The  idea  may  not 
at  once  suggest  itself  to  the  mind  of  the  traveller  ;  but  should 
it  occur  to  him,  or  be  brought  under  his  notice,  it  will  at  once 


RESTRAINTS  AND  PENALTIES.  39 

recommend  itself  to  his  reason.  In  particular,  should  he  now 
meet  with  some  individual  who  relates  the  previous  history  of 
Napoleon,  dwelling  specially  on  his  greatness  and  degradation, 
he  is  prepared  to  credit  his  informant,  and  he  feels  now  that  the 
mystery  has  been  unfolded,  and  that  all  difficulties  have  vanished. 
No  illustration  should  be  carried  beyond  the  purpose  contem- 
plated ;  and  that  now  used  is  merely  intended  to  exhibit  the 
kind  of  plaited  chain  which  observation  and  reasoning  joining 
together  will  be  inclined  to  construct  out  of  the  complex  mate- 
rials before  us,  when  we  look  at  the  relation  in  which  man  stands 
to  the  world.  We  cannot  avoid  discovering  proofs  of  man's 
grandeur  and  dignity.  All  nature,  inanimate,  instinctive,  and 
sentient,  recognises  him  as  its  superior  and  its  lord,  and  minis- 
ters to  his  comfort.  Provision  is  made  for  his  numerous  wants, 
by  a  complicated  but  most  skilfully  arranged  machinery.  Then 
what  noble  mental  faculties  !  what  deep  speculations  !  what  rich 
emotions  !  what  far-reaching  projects  and  anticipations  !  There 
are  persons  who  look  to  man  exclusively  under  these  fairer  aspects, 
and  never  cease  to  discourse  of  his  greatness  and  goodness.  But 
other  circumstances  force  themselves  on  the  attention  of  those 
who  keep  their  mind  open  for  the  reception  of  the  whole  truth. 
All  things  sublunary  ha/e  a  reference  more  or  less  direct  to  man  ; 
but  many  of  the  divine  arrangements  are  fitted  to  leave  the 
impression,  that  God  cannot  trust  mankind  in  respect  of  their 
wisdom,  their  goodnwjs,  or  integrity  of  purpose.  We  may  ob- 
serve ever-watchful  sentinels  guarding  him ;  and  we  learn  that 
force  is  ever  ready  to  be  employed  if  certain  limits  are  passed, 
and  certain  stringent  regulations  transgressed.  We  discover 
everywhere  signs  of  littleness  and  restlessness,  of  meanness  and 
of  crime.  There  are  divines  who  fix  their  eyes  exclusively  upon 
the  features  cf  humanity  last  named,  and  conclude  that  man  is 
now  lowsr  than  the  beasts  that  perish.  While  partial  and  pre- 
judiced /ninds  would  confine  their  attention  to  one  or  other  of 
these  views,  the  enlarged  soul  would  contemplate  both,  and  go 
out  in  search  of  some  doctrine  comprehensive  enough  to  embrace 
all.  Apart  from  positive  information  as  to  the  history  of  the 
world,  from  tradition  or  professed  revelation,  he  may  find  him- 
self baffled  in  all  his  conjectures ;  but  should  the  idea  be  pre- 
sented to  him  of  original  perfection  and  a  subsequent  fall,  he 
feels  now  as  if  he  had  obtained  what  he  wanted — a  truth  which 


40  PHENOMENA  COMMONLY  OVERLOOKED. 

gives  consistency  and  coherence  to  every  other  truth.     But  of 
this  more  hereafter. 


SECT.  III. THE  DISTANCE  OF  GOD  FROM  MAN. 

Assuming  that  God  is  a  being  of  infinite  wisdom  and  love,  it 
does  seem  mysterious  that  he  should  not  have  devised  means  by 
which  his  intelligent  creatures  on  the  earth  may  enter  into 
communion  with  him.  A  very  little  observation  suffices  to 
discover  the  wonderful  pains  which  have  been  taken  with  man, 
in  creating  him  at  first,  in  endowing  him  with  bodily  organs  and 
mental  faculties,  in  opening  to  him  sources  of  knowledge,  and 
placing  copious  resources  at  his  command.  What  high  intelli- 
gence !  What  far-sighted  sagacity  !  What  fields,  rich  and 
fertile,  placed  around  him,  inviting  him  to  enter  that  he  may 
dig  for  treasures  and  gather  fruits  !  It  does  seem  strange,  that 
in  endowing  man  with  such  lofty  powers,  God  should  not  have 
furnished  him  with  faculties  to  communicate  directly  with  his 
Maker  and  Governor.  God  has  connected  soul  and  body  closely 
and  intimately,  so  that  the  one  can  correspond  with  the  other  ; 
but  by  neither  can  man  correspond  with  the  Author  of  his  exist- 
ence. He  has  given  senses  by  which  to  communicate  with  the 
world  around  ;  but  He  has  given  no  bodily  or  mental  organ  by 
which  to  hold  communion  with  Himself.  He  has  enabled  us 
to  hold  pleasant  and  profitable  intercourse  witli  our  fellow- 
creatures  ;  but  through  no  natural  channel  can  we  enjoy  direct 
society  with  God.  It  looks,  meanwhile,  as  if  it  was  intended 
that  man  should  enjoy  such  communion  ;  and  when  we  reflect, 
first  upon  his  capacity,  and  then  upon  what  he  has  actually 
attained,  we  feel  in  much  the  same  way  as  when  we  survey  the 
eyeballs  of  the  blind,  and  then  learn  that  they  cannot  see.  It 
is  a  mystery  requiring  to  be  unravelled,  that  God  should  throw 
open  in  such  ungrudging  munificence  the  works  of  nature, 
that  man  may  expatiate  in  them  at  pleasure  ;  and  yet  that  he 
should  have  kept  himself  at  such  an  awful  and  unapproachable 
distance,  and  shut  himself  as  if  studiously  from  our  view.  The 
telescope  which  he  has  enabled  man  to  form,  looks  into  dis- 
tances of  space  which  cannot  be  calculated,  and  the  discoveries 
of  geology  look  into  ages  which  cannot  be  numbered  ;  but 
whether  we  look  above,  or  behind,  or  before,  we  cannot  any- 


THE  DISTANCE  OF  GOD  FROM  MAN.  41 

where  within  this  wide  expanse  wThich  we  have  explored,  reach 
immediate  intercourse  with  the  Being  of  whom  we  yet  know 
that  he  dwells  somewhere,  or  rather  everywhere  within  it.  In 
contact  everywhere  with  the  creature,  man  is  in  felt  contact 
nowhere  with  the  Creator ;  though  it  might  seem  as  if  the 
immediate  contemplation  of  God  and  fellowship  with  him  was 
an  infinitely  higher  and  more  profitable  exercise,  could  he  only 
reach  it,  than  any  intercourse  which  he  can  have  with  the  work- 
manship of  his  hands. 

Why  does  God  thus  keep  at  such  a  distance  from  creatures 
otherwise  so  highly  favoured  ?  If  man's  soul,  like  his  body,  be 
mortal,  how  strange  that  a  spirit  so  noble  in  itself,  and  so  richly 
endowed,  should  be  annihilated  without  once  coming  in  contact 
with  the  great  Spirit  of  the  universe  !  If  man's  soul  be  immortal, 
as  the  great  and  good  in  all  ages  have  believed,  why  does  not 
God  deign  to  instruct  him  in  his  future  and  eternal  destiny  ? 

God,  it  is  true,  is  known  by  us  to  be  very  near,  and  yet  we 
feel  him  to  be  at  an  infinite  distance.  He  seems  as  if  approach- 
ing us,  and  yet  he  is  unapproachable.  Men  call  upon  him,  and 
feel  as  if  they  were  invited  to  call  upon  him,  and  yet  he  deigns 
no  answer.  There  is  the  prayer  of  the  inquirer  for  light,  the 
complaint  of  the  sufferer,  and  the  cry  of  doubt  and  despair,  and 
yet  these  heavens  continue  shut  and  silent.  "  Even  to-day  is  my 
complaint  bitter,  my  stroke  is  heavier  than  my  groaning.  Oh 
that  I  knew  where  I  might  find  him  !  that  I  might  come  even 
to  his  seat !"  Such  have  been  the  complaint  and  the  demand  of 
many,  who  have  been  constrained,  when  no  answer  is  given,  to 
add,  "  Behold,  I  go  forward,  but  he  is  not  there  ;  and  backward, 
but  I  cannot  perceive  him :  on  the  left  hand,  where  he  doth 
work,  but  I  cannot  behold  him  :  he  hideth  himself  on  the  right 
hand,  that  I  cannot  see  him."  The  deepest  thinkers  have  been 
in  deeps  in  which  they  saw  no  light.  "  The  whole  hemisphere 
of  contemplation,"  says  Foster,  "  appears  inexpressibly  strange 
and  mysterious.  It  is  cloud  pursuing  cloud,  forest  after  forest, 
and  alps  upon  alps."  The  wild  infidel  (we  mean  Rousseau) 
proposes  a  test  by  which  he  may  determine  whether  he  is  or  is 
not  in  a  state  of  salvation.  He  is  to  throw  a  stone  at  a  parti- 
cular tree— if  it  strike  the  tree,  he  reckons  himself  safe  ;  and  if 
it  do  not  strike  the  tree,  he  draws  the  other  conclusion.  He 
performs  the  act,  and  God  takes  no  notice  of  it,  but  stands  apart 


42  PHENOMENA  COMMONLY  OVERLOOKED. 

in  solemn  majesty,  as  if  he  could  not  condescend  to  give  light 
to  the  inquirer.  The  frenzied  poet  (Shelley)  writes  Atheist  after 
his  name,  among  the  grandest  of  the  works  of  God  ;  yet  the 
rocks  do  not  rend,  the  mountains  do  not  quake,  and  the  lakes 
sleep  on  as  calmly  in  their  rocky  bosoms,  and  the  streams  leap 
with  as  lively  and  prattling  a  play  as  if  they  rejoiced  in  all  that 
was  done.  Man  wanders  in  the  mazes  of  error,  and  God  does 
not  interfere  to  set  him  right,  though  he  sometimes  seems  to 
interpose  in  order  to  punish.  Errors  descend  from  generation 
to  generation,  through  regions  wide  as  India,  and  thickly  peopled 
as  China,  and  the  stream  is  allowed  to  flow  on.  The  sorrowful 
complain  of  this  silence  as  cruel.  The  doubting  feel  as  if  it  was 
unreasonable.  The  sceptic  lays  his  fabric  on  these  doubts  and 
difficulties  as  on  a  foundation  of  ruins.  Meanwhile  God's  works 
move  on  as  if  he  was  unconscious  of  all  this,  or  as  if  nature 
knew  no  higher  power  than  blind  caprice  or  self-developing  law. 
There  are  persons  who,  on  observing  this  silence  and  apparent 
separation  of  God  from  mankind,  conclude  that  God  has  ceased 
to  take  any  interest  in  the  world.  The  ancient  Epicureans  and 
Sadducees,  and  the  Epicureans  and  Saclducees  of  every  age,  have 
elevated  God  to  an  ethereal  region,  where  he  cannot  be  disturbed 
by  the  noise  and  folly,  by  the  cries  and  complaints  of  his  crea- 
tures. But  facts  belonging  to  a  different  order  force  themselves 
upon  our  notice.  While  God  stands  apparently  at  so  unap- 
proachable a  distance,  there  are  yet  intimations  of  his  being  very 
near  and  ever  watchful.  Man  sometimes  wishes  that  God 
would  let  him  alone.  He  complains  of  the  strict  and  jealous 
care  which  God  takes  of  him.  "  Let  me  alone,  for  my  days  are 
vanity.  What  is  man  that  thou  shouldest  magnify  him,  and 
that  thou  shouldest  set  thine  heart  upon  him,  and  that  thou 
shouldest  visit  him  every  morning,  and  try  him  every  moment  ? 
How  long  wilt  thou  not  depart  from  me  ?"  But  God  shows 
that  he  will  not  let  man  alone.  God  has  within  every  human 
breast  a  witness  for  himself,  giving  admonition  of  guilt,  and 
pointing  to  coming  punishment.  He  has  various  ways  of  indi- 
cating that  he  has  never,  for  one  instant,  been  unobservant  of 
the  conduct  of  his  creatures.  Nemesis  has  always  been  repre- 
sented as  seeming  to  tarry,  but  making  her  appearance  most 
opportunely  at  last.  When  man's  passion  is  strong,  and  bent 
upon  indulgence,  avenging  justice  may  seem  as  if  it  was  standing 


THE  DISTANCE  OF  GOD  FROM  MAN.  43 

aside,  and  inattentive  ;  but  it  is  only  that  it  may  seize  him  with 
a  more  powerful  grasp  in  the  state  of  exhaustion  that  follows. 
When  the  plots  of  cunning  and  deceit  are  successful,  it  may 
look  as  if  God  did  not  observe  human  affairs  ;  but  when  the 
dishonest  man  is  caught  at  last,  he  finds  it  to  be  in  toils  which 
have  for  years  been  weaving  for  him.  Napoleon,  on  his  march 
to  Moscow,  concluded  that  he  could  command  his  destiny  ;  but 
when  the  nations  of  Europe,  alarmed  at  his  ambition,  shut  him 
up  in  St.  Helena,  every  one  saw  that  his  destiny  had,  instead, 
been  all  the  time  carrying  him  along,  as  the  stream  bears  upon 
its  surface  the  bubbles  which  its  waters  had  formed.  It  not 
unfrequently  happens  that  every  opposing  power,  which  the 
wicked  thinks  he  has  crushed,  rises  up  to  pursue  and  punish 
him,  when  the  tide  of  fortune  is  turning  against  him.  Every 
drop  of  that  cup  of  bitter  elements  which  he  has  been  filling  for 
others,  he  must  drink  himself  when  he  has  filled  up  the  measure 
of  his  iniquities.  The  fagots  which  he  has  been  collecting  for 
the  destruction  of  others  all  go  to  augment  the  flame  of  his  own 
funeral  pile.  The  drunkard  is  not  more  certainly  haunted  by 
the  frightful  apparitions  called  up  by  the  disease  which  follows 
excess,  than  crime  is  pursued  by  its  avenging  spirits.  There  is, 
if  we  may  so  speak,  a  gathering  and  closing  in  at  the  death,  and 
that  to  behold  his  agonies  and  humiliation,  of  all  the  powers 
which  have  been  in  scattered  scent  and  pursuit  of  him,  through- 
out the  whole  hunting-ground  of  his  career.  It  is  affirmed  of 
the  drowning  man,  that  in  the  brief  space  of  time  that  precedes 
unconsciousness,  every  event  of  his  past  life  passes  in  rapid 
review  before  his  eyes  ;  and  there  is  certainly  something  of  this 
hurrying  in  the  avenging  events,  all  having  a  connexion  with 
his  past  life,  which  God  crowds  on  one  another  to  make  the  am- 
bitious, the  proud,  and  malignant,  discover  that  He  has  all  along 
been  ruling  their  destiny. 

Now,  combine  these  two  classes  of  facts,  the  apparent  distance 
of  God,  and  yet  his  nearness  intimated  in  various  ways,  his 
seeming  unconcern  and  yet  constant  watchfulness  ;  and  we  see 
only  one  consistent  conclusion  which  can  be  evolved,  that  God 
regards  man  as  a  criminal,  from  whom  he  must  withdraw  him- 
self, but  whom  he  must  not  allow  to  escape. 

An  individual,  we  may  suppose,  has  committed  a  horrible 
crime,  when  intoxicated,  and  is  committed  to  prison  while  yet 


44  PHENOMENA  COMMONLY  OVERLOOKED. 

in  a  state  of  unconsciousness.  On  awaking  to  reflection,  he 
would  make  inquiry  as  to  his  past  or  present  state  ;  but  he  finds 
that  there  is  none  to  answer  him.  He  utters  a  cry  of  alarm  or 
agony,  but  no  reply  is  given.  He  would  conclude  that  he  is 
abandoned  by  all ;  but,  on  turning  round  and  round,  he  finds 
prison  walls,  with  only  so  much  of  the  light  of  heaven  shining 
through  as  to  show  that  pains  have  been  taken  to  render  his 
escape  hopeless.  What  other  conclusion  can  he  draw  than  that 
he  is  shut  up  in  prison,  awaiting  the  time  when  he  is  to  be 
brought  out  to  trial  ?  Does  it  not  seem  as  if  man  was  in  a 
somewhat  similar  position,  abandoned  and  yet  watched,  spared 
in  life,  but  spared  as  if  for  trial  ?  And  it  were  well  if,  instead 
of  seeking  to  drown  misery  by  frantic  merriment,  or  to  beat 
uselessly  against  his  prison  walls,  he  was  endeavouring  to  realize 
the  nature  and  extent  of  that  crime  of  which  he  is  but  half- 
conscious,  and  anxiously  inquiring  if  there  be  not  some  way  of 
averting  the  j  udgment  which  may  soon  be  pronounced  against 
him. 

SECT.  IV. — THE  DISTANCE  OF  MAN  FKOM  GOD. 

The  facts  which  present  themselves  under  this  head  are  the 
counterpart  of  those  considered  by  us  under  the  last.  There  is 
both  an  attracting  and  repelling  principle. 

First,  there  is  a  feeling  in  man  prompting  him  to  seek  God, 
if  haply  he  may  find  him.  Transient  feelings  of  gratitude,  the 
fear  of  danger,  the  keen  sense  of  sin,  the  fear  of  punishment — all 
these  would  draw  or  drive  him  into  the  presence  of  God.  There 
are  certain  times  in  the  lives  of  all  whose  hearts  are  not  com- 
pletely hardened,  when  their  feelings  flow  forth  spontaneously 
towards  the  God  or  the  gods  whom  they  have  been  taught  to 
worship.  When  some  lovely  landscape  kindles  the  eye  and  ex- 
pands the  breast,  and  calls  forth  trains  of  thought  which  run 
towards  all  that  is  beautiful  and  grand,  there  are  yet  deeper 
feelings  which  will  prompt  them  to  raise  their  anthem  of  praise 
with  that  which  ascends  from  the  works  of  God  around.  When 
unexpected  blessings  are  conferred,  when  a  friend  long  absent 
suddenly  returns,  when  a  relative  who  has  straggled  for  a  time 
with  the  billows  of  death  is  restored  to  the  bosom  of  his  rejoicing 
family,  when  some  stroke  of  adversity  is  stayed  at  the  moment 


THE  DISTANCE  OF  MAN  FROM  GOD.  45 

of  descent,  when  the  storm  which  threatened  to  overwhelm  us  is 
suddenly  calmed, — it  is  the  native  impulse  of  the  human  mind  to 
pour  forth  its  sentiments,  too  spiritual  for  human  language  to 
utter  them,  or  human  ear  to  understand  them,  into  the  ear  of  a 
listening  God,  to  whom  they  are  due,  and  who  can  comprehend 
them  all.  More  frequently — such  is  the  nature  of  the  human 
mind — it  is  when  the  storms  rise,  or  when  wearied  of  the  voyage, 
or  when  rest  might  be  pleasant  after  labour,  that  the  mind 
pictures  a  tranquil  haven  to  which  it  would  betake  itself  in  the 
presence  of  God.  Or  it  is  when  clouds  are  gathering  round, 
when  gaunt  poverty  is  in  hard  pursuit,  when  friends  die  or  for- 
sake us,  when  the  last  star  of  hope  in  the  firmament  is  quenched 
in  darkness — we  are  brought  to  our  knees  by  the  weight  of  our 
cares,  and  find  no  outlet  to  our  feelings  so  suitable  as  the  lan- 
guage of  devotion  and  prayer.  More  powerful  still,  if  not  more 
frequent,  it  is  a  sense  of  sin  and  a  fear  of  deserved  punishment ; 
it  is  the  first  moment's  reflection  after  passion  has  hurried  us  into 
the  commission  of  some  criminal  deed  which  cannot  be  undone  ; 
it  is  the  resurrection  of  some  sin  buried  in  oblivion,  but  now 
rising  to  haunt  us  like  the  ghost  of  a  departed  foe  ;  it  is  the  vivid 
flash  of  lightning,  such  as  the  conscience  sometimes  emits,  giving 
us  a  view  of  overhanging  darkness  and  clouds  charged  with  judg- 
ments. These  are  the  feelings  which  constrain  men  to  cry  out 
to  God,  and  which  prompt  them  to  express  their  faith  or  confess 
their  fears. 

Such  is  the  attracting  principle — and  we  do  not  wonder  that 
there  should  be  a  principle  attracting  man  to  his  Maker ;  but 
there  is  also  a  repelling  principle,  and  it  is  the  latter  which  is  so 
very  mysterious.  It  is  a  fact — and  the  explanation  is  to  be 
found  in  an  evil  conscience — that  there  is  something  in  human 
nature  which  would  drive  man  away  from  his  Maker.  When 
his  better  feelings  would  prompt  him  to  fall  down  before  God, 
a  hand  from  behind  is  felt  to  be  holding  him  back,  and  he 
hesitates  and  procrastinates  till  the  time  for  action  is  over. 
Thus,  when  nature  is  displaying  its  loveliest  scenes,  he  would  be 
inclined  to  look  to  that  light  in  the  heavens  whose  beams  gladden 
them  all ;  but  the  eye  is  blinded  by  its  excess  of  purity,  and 
turns  back  instantly  to  the  less  dazzling  landscapes  of  the  earth. 
In  the  hour  of  adversity,  the  desponding  feelings  which,  for  the 
health  of  the  soul,  should  be  allowed  to  flow  out  towards  God, 


46  PHENOMENA  COMMONLY  OVERLOOKED. 

are  repressed  and  bound  up  from  all  inspection,  and  they  fester 
within  till  they  pollute  the  heart  and  rankle  the  temper,  and 
burst  out  in  misery  and  crime.  Still  more  frequently,  in  order 
to  check  his  melancholy,  and  rouse  his  morbid  feelings,  the  man 
runs  round  the  gay  and  giddy  circles  of  society,  and  tries  to 
banish  grief  by  banishing  reflection,  till  he  falls  in  the  very 
feverishness  and  dizziness  of  a  feeling  which  has  been  too  highly 
excited.  More  melancholy  still,  he  takes  the  cup  of  intoxication 
into  his  hands,  and  seeks  to  drown  his  cares  in  forgetfulness  ;  or 
he  goes  to  the  dark  haunts  of  vice,  and  hatches  passions  within 
him,  the  bursting  whereof  produces  a  viper  spreading  everywhere 
poison  and  death.  Again,  when  the  conviction  of  sin  would  lay 
him  in  lowly  penitence  before  the  God  whom  he  has  offended, 
he  betakes  himself  to  certain  outward  acts  and  services,  which 
may  stretch  the  strings  of  his  feelings  till  the  vibrations  of  con- 
science subside.  When  he  has  fallen  into  vice,  and  when  a 
sense  of  weakness  and  insufficiency  would  drive  him  for  help  to 
the  power  of  the  Almighty,  he  is  tempted  by  pride  to  collect  his 
remaining  strength,  and  make  one  other  effort  to  save  his  sink- 
ing virtue ;  and  though  the  vessel,  when  yet  entire,  could  not 
bear  him  up,  but  was  broken  in  pieces  by  the  dashing  of  the 
waves  of  temptation  and  passion,  he  will  cling  to  some  feeble 
fragment  of  it,  and  soon  feels  himself  sinking  to  rise  no  more. 

Such  experiences  demonstrate  that  there  is  alienation  from  God 
on  the  part  of  man.  The  nature  and  extent  of  this  alienation 
may  be  more  fitly  investigated  at  a  future  stage  of  our  inquiries  ; 
but  the  fact  that  there  is  such  an  estrangement  proceeding  from 
a  consciousness  of  sin,  cannot  be  disputed,  for  history  and  expe- 
rience furnish  too  abundant  proof  of  its  existence.  Every  one 
feels  it  to  be  natural  for  him  to  love  certain  earthly  objects,  but 
that,  while  it  is  natural  to  the  father  to  love  his  child,  it  is  not 
natural  to  man  to  love  God  as  he  ought  to  love  him.  Man  is 
thus  driven  from  God  by  one  principle,  while  there  is  something 
within  which  at  the  very  time  is  testifying  in  behalf  of  God. 
"Man,"  says  Vinet,  "cannot  renounce  either  his  sins  or  his 
God."  There  is,  in  short,  a  conscience,  but  a  conscience  un- 
pacified,  a  conscience  telling  him  of  God,  but  urging  him  to  flee 
from  that  very  God  to  whom  it  directs  him. 

Hence  the  strange  contradictions  of  the  human  soul.     It  is 


•& 


drawn  to  God,  and  yet  it  is  repelled  from  God  when  it  comes  near 


THE  DISTANCE  OF  MAN  FROM  GOD.  47 

him — as  the  electrified  ball  is  repelled  as  soon  as  it  comes  into 
contact  with  the  object  which  attracted  it.  Man  is  constrained 
to  acknowledge  God,  and  constrained  to  tremble  before  the  God 
whom  he  acknowledges.  He  would  escape  from  God  only  to 
feel  that  he  is  chained  to  him  by  bonds  which  he  cannot  break. 
He  would  flee  from  God,  but  feels  himself  helpless  as  the  charmed 
bird  with  the  eye  of  the  serpent  fixed  upon  it.  He  would  go'  forth 
like  Cain  from  the  presence  of  the  Lord,  but  he  has  God's  mark 
upon  him,  and  is  still  under  his  eye  in  all  his  wanderings.  He 
would  flee  from  the  presence  of  God,  like  the  rebellious  prophet, 
into  a  region  of  thought  and  feeling  where  the  remembrance  of 
God  can  never  trouble  him  ;  but  it  is  only  to  find  himself 
brought  back  by  restraints  laid  upon  him.  In  his  conduct  to- 
wards his  God,  there  is  prostration  and  yet  rebellion ;  there  is 
assurance  and  yet  there  is  terror.  When  he  refuses  to  worship 
God,  it  is  from  mingled  pride  and  alarm  ;  when  he  worships 
God,  it  is  from  the  same  feelings  ;  and  the  worship  which  he 
spontaneously  pays  is  a  strange  mixture  of  presumption  and 
slavish  fear. 

Hence  the  vibrating  movements  of  the  world's  religious  his- 
tory. Under  this  double  influence,  attractive  and  repulsive, 
man's  eccentric  orbit  is  not  so  much  like  that  of  the  planets, 
with  their  equable  motion  and  temperature,  as  like  that  of  the 
comets,  now  approaching,  as  it  were,  within  the  scorching  beams 
of  the  Central  Heat  and  Light,  and  again  driven  away  into  the 
utmost  and  coldest  regions  of  space,  and  seeming  as  if  they  were 
let  loose  from  all  central  and  restraining  influence. 

Under  these  influences,  sometimes  clashing,  and  at  other  times 
concurring,  man  acts  in  one  or  other  of  two  ways  ;  and  we  urge 
the  circumstance  as  at  once  a  proof  and  illustration  of  the  truth 
of  the  views  now  advanced.  He  concludes  that  God  is  taking  no 
notice  of  him,  and  he  follows  the  bent  of  his  own  inclinations  ; 
or,  in  the  dread  of  punishment,  he  betakes  himself  to  supersti- 
tion and  idle  ceremonies,  to  excruciating  sacrifices  and  acts  of 
will-worship,  supposed  by  him  to  be  fitted  to  pacify  an  angry 
God.  Some  give  themselves  up  to  the  one,  and  some  to  the 
other,  of  these  impulses  ;  some  are  Sadducees,  and  others  are 
Pharisees ;  some  are  Epicureans,  and  others  are  Stoics ;  some 
are  Infidels,  and  others  are  Devotees.  The  majority  of  mankind 
flit  between  th<?  two,  between  unbelief  and  superstition ;  now, 


48  PHENOMENA  COMMONLY  OVERLOOKED. 

when  in  health,  giving  themselves  to  the  wildness  of  the  one, 
and  now  in  trouble,  clinging  to  the  strictness  of  the  other,  and 
generally  remaining  in  a  kind  of  neutral  territory,  like  the  false 
prophet's  coffin,  seeming  to  hang  by  the  heavens,  but  truly  upon 
the  earth.*  Mme.  De  Sevigne  expresses,  with  her  usual  naivete, 
the  feelings  of  multitudes  : — "  I  wish  very  much  I  could  be  re- 
ligious. I  plague  La  Mousse  about  it  every  day.  I  belong 
at  present  neither  to  God  nor  the  devil ;  and  I  find  this  condi- 
tion very  uncomfortable,  though  between  you  and  me  the  most 
natural  in  the  world." 

Illustrative  Note  (a.)— THE  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND. 

Our  ordinary  philosophic  historians  have  utterly  failed  in  their  attempts  to  ex- 
plain the  -world's  history  so  far  as  it  relates  to  religion  or  superstition,  because 
they  have  not  taken  into  account  those  principles  in  man's  nature  'which  now 
draw  him  towards  a  supernatural  power,  and  again  drive  him  away  from  it.  Such 
writers  as  Montesquieu  and  Robertson  have  seen  other  causes,  physical  or  moral, 
but  have  left  this  one  very  much  out  of  view.  The  clever  but  flippant  Voltaire  ex- 
hibited the  repulsive  or  infidel  principle  in  his  writings,  as  he  is  said  to  have  pro- 
fessed the  attractive  or  superstitious  influence  at  his  dying  hour ;  but  it  was  not 
to  be  expected  of  him  that  he  should  be  able  to  detect  and  develop  those  principles 
of  which  he  was  the  unconscious  slave.  Some  of  our  later  historical  speculators, 
such  as  Guizot  and  Carlyle,  have  had-  occasional  glimpses  of  the  better  principle, 
but  none  of  them  have  sounded  the  full  depths  of  the  "  spirit's  mysteries,"  or  taken 
sufficiently  enlarged  views  of  both  principles,  the  better  and  the  worse,  to  enable 
them  to  explain  satisfactorily  the  most  startling  passages  in  the  world's  history. 
They  have  no  calculus  to  solve  so  high  a  problem.  Such  writers  as  Hume  and 
Gibbon,  feeling  all  commonplace  explanations  to  fail,  can  only  talk  of  man's  un- 
accountable madness  in  everything  relating  to  religion. 

These  two,  the  attracting  and  repelling  principle,  do  not,  as  might  be  supposed, 
nullify  or  destroy  each  other,  but  produce  motion  and  powerful  action  like  the 
attractions  and  repulsions  of  electricity.  According  as  the  one  or  other  prevails, 
according  as  there  is  excess  or  defect,  there  is  motion  towards  God,  or  motion 
away  from  God — there  is  belief,  or  there  is  scepticism.  Some  of  the  most  extra- 
ordinary events  in  the  history  (if  individuals,  of  families,  and  of  nations,  are  to  be 
explained  by  these  agencies.  They  have  been  the  real  moving  power  in  the  pro- 
duction of  events  in  which  ordinary  observers  have  discovered  other  and  more 
obvious  and  superficial  causes,  just  as  electricity  is  now  acknowledged  to  be  the  cause 
of  changes  in  physical  phenomena,  which  were  before  referred  to  more  palpable 
agents,  such  as  heat  and  light.  The  sudden  changes  in  men's  religions  opinions, 
and  the  religious  movements  which  form  so  curious  and  melancholy  a  chapter  in 
the  world's  history,  can  be  understood  only  by  the  help  of  these  deeper  principles, 
just  as  the  changes  in  the  weather,  the  currents  of  the  atmosphere,  and  the 
gathering  and  scattering  of  the  clouds,  can  be  explained  only  by  the  attractions 
and  repulsions  of  polar  forces.     These  deeper  principles  of  our  nature  are  capable 

*Hume  speaks  (Nat.  Hist,  of  Religion,  Sect.  12)  of  man's  u=ual  religious  state  as  some  "unaccount- 
able operation  of  the  mind  between  disbelief  and  conviction."  We  have  endeavoured  to  give  an  ex- 
planation of  this  state  by  principles  which  Hume  was  not  willing  to  look  at. 


THE  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND.  49 

of  producing  results  of  the  most  appalling  magnitude.  The  winds  of  feeling,  the 
waves  of  passion,  and  the  fires  of  lust,  the  old  and  recognised  elements,  do  not 
produce  greater  effects  upon  each  other,  and  upon  the  more  earthly  ingredients  in 
man's  nature,  than  does  the  more  latent  principle  that  derives  its  force  from  the 
repelling  and  attractive  power  of  conscience.  No  human  arithmetic  can  estimate 
the  velocity  with  which  this  current,  positive  or  negative,  will  rush  in  to  fill  the 
vacuum  which  may  have  been  produced  in  the  heart  of  an  individual  man,  when 
the  worldly  hopes  which  filled  it  have  been  torn  away,  or  in  the  heart  of  a  nation 
when  it  is  without  a  creed,  or  when  its  creed  has  become  obsolete,  and  is  felt  to  be 
indefensible.  The  lurid  lightning  does  not  produce  a  more  rapid  effect  in  the 
physical  world,  nor  does  the  accompanying  thunder  raise  a  deeper  feeling  of  awe, 
than  the  religious  impulse  has  done  at  some  periods,  and  the  hatred  of  religion 
has  done  at  other  periods  in  the  history  of  the  world. 

It  is  thus  that  we  are  to  account  for  the  powerful  impulse  which  religion,  or  the 
hatred  of  religion,  has  given  to  the  minds  of  individual  men  and  of  nations.  Hence 
the  frenzy — hence  the  bigotry  of  infidelity.  Hence,  too,  the  frenzy — hence  the 
bigotry  of  superstition.  Hence  we  find  men  now  mad  upon  their  idols,  and  now 
mad  against  them — now  honouring,  and  forthwith  beating  them.  The  ancient 
Egyptians,  in  times  of  severe  national  distress,  took  their  sacred  animals  to  a  secret 
place  and  put  them  to  death ;  and  threatened  their  gods,  that,  if  the  calamity  did 
not  pass  away,  they  would  disclose  the  mysteries  of  Isis,  or  expose  the  members  of 
Osiris  to  Typhon.  Augustus  revenged  himself  for  the  loss  of  his  fleet  by  storms  on 
two  several  occasions,  by  forbidding  the  statue  of  Neptune  to  be  carried  in  the  pro- 
cession of  the  gods.  "These  men  fear  the  gods,:'  says  Plutarch,  "  and  fly  to  them 
for  succour.  They  flatter  them,  and  insult  them.  They  pray  to  them,  and  com- 
plain of  them."  These  impulses  have  at  times  been  stronger  than  the  strongest  of 
human  instincts  and  affections,  than  the  love  of  parents  for  their  children,  or  the 
love  of  life.  Mothers  have  made  their  children  to  pass  through  the  fire;  and  de- 
votees have  mangled  their  own  bodies,  or  thrown  themselves  before  the  car  of 
Juggernaut.  The  results  that  have  followed  from  the  abuse  of  this  sentiment  have 
been  as  stupendous  and  melancholy  as  any  that  have  proceeded  from  the  bursting 
out  of  the  human  passions.  One  hundred  and  thirty -six  thousand  human  skulls 
were  counted  in  a  particular  temple  in  Mexico  ;  and  it  is  calculated,  that  for  a  period 
of  200  years,  there  had  been  an  average  of  680  murders  in  honour  of  a  single  idol.* 
Other  events  show,  that  enmity  to  God  has  produced  consequences  no  less  lament- 
able. The  history  of  the  Jews,  at  the  fall  of  Jerusalem,  does  not  more  strikingly 
illustrate  the  strength  of  the  one  principle,  than  the  counterpart  history  of  Paris, 
at  the  time  of  the  first  Revolution,  demonstrates  the  force  of  the  other  principle, 
when  men,  as  Burke  says,  "  hate  God  with  all  their  heart,  with  all  their  mind, 
with  all  their  soul,  and  with  all  their  strength."  The  whole  passage  is  worthy  of 
being  quoted,  as  descriptive  of  the  strength  of  a  principle,  of  the  nature  of  which, 
however,  Burke  had  nothing  but  imperfect  glimpses.  "  The  rebels  to  God  perfectly 
abhor  the  author  of  their  being ;  they  hate  him  with  all  their  mind,  with  all  their 
soul,  and  with  all  their  strength.  He  never  presents  himself  to  their  thoughts, 
but  to  menace  and  alarm  them.  They  cannot  strike  the  sun  out  of  the  heavens, 
but  they  are  able  to  raise  a  smouldering  smoke  that  obscures  him  from  their  own 
eyes.  Not  being  able  to  revenge  themselves  on  God,  they  have  a  delight  in  vica- 
riously defacing,  degrading,  torturing,  and  tearing  to  pieces  his  image  in  man. 
Let  no  one  judge  of  them  by  what  he  has  conceived  of  them,  when  they  were  not 
incorporated  and  had  no  lead.  They  were  then  only  passengers  in  a  common 
*  Prescott's  Conquest  of  Mexico,  B.  i.  c.  iii. 
D 


50  ILLUSTRATIVE  NOTE. 

vehicle.  They  were  then  carried  along  with  the  general  motion  of  religion  in  the 
community;  and,  without  being  aware  of  it,  partook  of  its  influence.  In  that 
relation,  at  worst,  their  nature  was  left  free  to  counterwork  their  principles. 
[Burke  should  have  said,  one  part  of  their  nature  restrained  another.]  They  de- 
spaired of  giving  any  very  general  currency  to  their  opinions.  They  considered 
them  a  reserved  privilege  for  the  chosen  few.  But  when  the  possibility  of  dominion, 
lead,  and  propagation,  presented  themselves,  and  they  saw  that  the  ambition  which 
before  made  them  hypocrites  might  rather  gain  than  lose  by  a  daring  avowal  of 
their  sentiments,  then  the  nature  of  this  infernal  spirit,  which  has  evil  for  its  good, 
appeared  in  its  full  perfection.  Nothing,  indeed,  but  the  possession  of  some  power 
can,  with  any  certainty,  discover  what  at  the  bottom  is  the  true  character  of  any 
man."* 

Such  phenomena  as  these,  whether  connected  with  superstition  or  infidelity, 
have  baffled  all  ordinary  historical  philosophers,  or  philosophic  historians,  to 
account  for  them.  After  we  have  read  all  that  they  can  say  about  human  madness 
and  human  passion — about  pride,  vanity,  and  malice — we  feel  as  if  they  had 
merely  explained  some  of  the  accompaniments  of  these  great  movements,  and 
shown  why  the  stream  took  a  particular  direction,  but  without  at  all  exploring 
the  stream  itself,  which  leaps  up  from  one  of  the  profoundest  depths  of  the  human 
heart,  and  needs  from  the  other  powers  and  propensities  only  a  channel  to  flow  in. 

The  more  popular  of  the  false  religions  which  have  spread  themselves  over  the 
world — the  superstitions  of  the  East,  of  ancient  Greece  and  Rome,  of  Mohammed, 
and  of  the  corrupt  Christian  Church — have  all  given  the  most  ample  scope  to  these 
impulses  in  our  nature,  and  to  some  of  the  worst  passions  in  the  human  heart 
besides.  What  a  strange  compound,  yet  banded  firmly  together,  of  licentiousness 
and  yet  of  rigidity,  of  loose  morality  and  of  unbending  ritual !  No  system  of 
superstition  will  be  extensively  adopted  unless  it  provides  for  these  opposing  wants 
of  our  nature,  unless  it  give  open  or  secret  license  to  wildness,  and  allow  room  or 
find  employment  for  remorse.  The  two  peculiar  features  of  man's  existing  condi- 
tion are  evil  passions  and  an  evil  conscience.  No  superstition  can  become  popular 
which  does  not  provide  or  admit  something  to  meet  the  craving  demands  of  both. 
Hence  the  grossness  of  Paganism,  with  its  horrid  and  cruel  sacrifices  :  hence  the 
licentiousness  and  the  tortures  practised  around  the  same  Indian  temple.  Bacchus 
and  Venus  are  to  be  found  in  the  same  mythologies  with  Baal  and  Pluto,  and 
under  various  names,  and  with  minor  individual  differences,  have  been  worshipped 
over  the  larger  portion  of  the  Pagan  world.  Even  in  Rome,  which  professed  an 
abhorrence  of  the  levity  of  the  Greeks,  there  were,  according  to  Valerius  Maximus, 
so  many  as  7000  bacchanals,  among  whose  mysteries  both  prostitution  and  murder 
occupied  an  important  place.  Hence  the  love  of  war,  with  the  stringent  formularies 
that  distinguished  Mohammedanism  in  the  days  of  its  youth  and  vigour.  The 
apostate  Christian  Church  seems  to  unite  in  itself  all  the  elements  found  separately 
in  every  other  superstition,  and  to  be  Catholic  and  all-embracing,  not  in  its  truths, 
but  in  its  errors.  We  agree  with  De  Maistre  in  thinking  that  "  there  is  not  a  dogma 
in  the  Catholic  Church,  nor  even  a  general  custom  belonging  to  the  high  discipline, 
which  has  not  its  roots  in  the  extreme  depths  of  human  nature,  and  consequently 
in  some  general  opinion  more  or  less  altered  here  and  there,  but  common  in  its 
principles  to  all  nations. "f  In  the  bosom  of  that  Church  there  have  been  em- 
braced at  the  same  instant  unbridled  scepticism  and  profligacy,  grasping  ambition 
and  the  most  profound  deceit,  with  the  asceticism  of  the  anchorite,  and  the  blind 
faith  of  the  devotee.     These  things  may  seem  inconsistent,  and  so  they  are  ;  but 

*  Burke's  Regicide  Peace.  t  Du  Pape. 


THE  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND.  51 

their  inconsistency  is  to  be  found  in  human  nature,  the  character  of  which  they 
exhibit,  as  the  unwholesome  food  which  the  diseased  stomach  demands  points  out 
the  nature  and  craving  power  of  the  malady  with  which  it  is  afflicted. 

When  a  religion  waxes  old  in  a  country — when  the  circumstances  which  at  first 
favoured  its  formation  or  introduction  have  changed — when  in  an  age  of  reason  it 
is  tried  and  found  unreasonable — when  in  an  age  of  learning  it  is  discovered  to  be 
the  product  of  the  grossest  ignorance — when  in  an  age  of  levity  it  is  felt  to  be  too 
stern, — then  the  infidel  spirit  takes  courage,  and  with  a  zeal  in  which  there  is  a 
strange  mixture  of  scowling  revenge  and  light-hearted  wantonness,  of  deep-set 
hatred  and  laughing  levity,  it  proceeds  to  level  all  existing  temples  and  altars, 
and  erects  no  others  in  their  room.  "  The  popular  religions  of  antiquity,"  says 
Neander,  "  answered  only  for  a  certain  stage  of  culture.  When  the  nations  in  the 
course  of  their  progress  had  passed  beyond  this,  the  necessary  consequence  was  a 
dissevering  of  the  spirit  from  the  religious  traditions.  In  the  case  of  the  more 
quiet  and  equable  development  of  the  Oriental  mind,  so  tenacious  of  the  old,  the 
opposition  between  the  mythic  religion  of  the  people  and  the  secret  theosophic 
doctrines  of  a  priestly  caste,  who  gave  direction  to  the  popular  conscience,  might 
exist  for  centuries  without  change.  But  among  the  more  excitable  nations  of  the 
West,  intellectual  culture,  so  soon  as  it  attained  to  a  certain  degree  of  indepen- 
dence, must  fall  into  collision  with  the  mythic  religion  handed  down  from  the 
infancy  of  the  people."  "  As  early  as  the  fifth  and  fourth  centuries  before  Christy 
the  arbitrary  and  heartless  dialectic  of  the  sophists  was  directed  against  the  might 
of  holy  tradition  and  morals."*  Celsus  may  be  taken  as  the  representative  of  the 
infidel  principle  when  Christianity  was  introduced.  Possessed  of  "  wit  and  acute- 
ness,  without  earnest  purpose  or  depth  of  research,  and  with  a  worldly  understand- 
ing that  glances  merely  at  the  surface,  and  delights  in  hunting  up  difficulties  and 
contradictions,"  he  opposes  superstition,  not  because  of  his  love  for  religion,  but 
because  of  his  hatred  to  all  religion ;  and  hence  is  found  opposing  both  supersti- 
tion and  the  true  religion,  with  only  this  difference,  that  while  he  laughs  at  the 
popular  mythologies,  he  gets  angry  at  Christianity. 

When  Popery  was  waning  in  France,  in  the  clays  of  Louis  XIV.,  when  the  lives 
of  the  clergy  brought  reproach  on  religion,  and  its  superstitions  could  not  stand 
the  sifting  light  of  modern  science — then  infidelity,  long  lurking,  as  it  ever  lurks, 
in  the  midst  of  superstition,  found  vent  in  those  sneers  which  are  always  the  ap- 
propriate and  true  expression  of  scepticism,  expressive  at  once  of  its  wantonness 
and  deep  malignity.  In  the  present  day,  the  superstitions  of  India,  in  which 
theology  and  cosmogony  are  so  closely  intertwined  that  they  must  stand  or  fall 
together,  are  being  undermined  among  the  higher  classes  by  the  advancement  of 
European  science.  One  look  through  the  telescope  dispels  all  the  illusions  of  the 
Brahmiuical  faith,  and  blots  out  of  existence  as  many  myriads  of  gods  as  it  brings 
into  view  myriads  of  stars  reflecting  the  glory  of  the  one  living  and  true  God. 
The  result  is  a  widening  scepticism  among  the  Hindoos  of  the  higher  castes. 

But  no  nation  can  be  long  without  a  religion.  There  are  times  in  every  man's 
history  when  he  feels  that  he  needs  to  be  strengthened  by  faith  in  a  higher  power; 
and  mankind  generally  will  never  consent  systematically  to  cut  the  last  tie  that 
connects  them  with  heaven.  The  attracting  principle  must  operate  ;  and  being  a 
universally  active  and  powerful  principle,  it  insists  on  a  creed  and  religious  wor- 
ship as  its  appropriate  expression. 

Human  sagacity  cannot  predict  what  building  may  be  raised  on  the  ruins  of 
ancient  superstitions,  among  the  half-civilized  nations  of  the  East;  but  it  can 
*  General  Church  History — Introduction. 


52  ILLUSTRATIVE  NOTE. 

certainly  foretell,  proceeding  on  the  known  principles  of  the  iuman  mind,  thai 
when  infidelity.has  advanced  a  little  farther  with  its  work  of  devastation,  nature, 
which  abhors  a  vacuum,  will  demand  something  positive  to  fill  up  the  void.  If 
scriptural  truth  does  not  pre-occupy  the  ground,  it  may  be  feared  that  the  super- 
stition which  grew  so  vigorously  on  the  debris  of  fallen  empires  in  the  middle 
ages  of  Europe,  and  which  has  been  transplanted  into  the  rich  but  wild  soil  of 
South  America,  and  of  not  a  few  of  the  British  colonies,  may  yet  find  its  seeds 
taking  congenial  root  in  the  heaving  plains  on  which  the  superstitions  of  India 
and  China  are  soon  to  decay. 

We  know  what  has  taken  place  in  France.  The  infidel  principle  wrought  its 
appropriate  work  of  destruction  at  the  first  Revolution.  The  opposite  principle 
then  rushed  in  once  more  to  fill  up  the  void.  Napoleon  Bonaparte  perceived  that 
a  new  and  vigorous  crop  must  spring  up  from  the  old  and  indestructible  prin- 
ciples which  have  their  roots  deep  down  in  the  human  heart ;  and  that  the  lean 
and  haggard  ears  which  infidelity  had  raised  up  were  becoming  thinner  and 
weaker,  and  must  needs  die.  He  reasoned  from  what  he  had  experienced  in  his 
own  breast  more  than  from  observation,  and  his  reasoning  had  therefore  the  firmer 
foundation  to  rest  on.  M.  Thiers,  in  whom  the  conqueror  has  found  a  befitting 
historian — the  one  being  as  clever  and  as  unprincipled,  too,  as  the  other — has  fur- 
nished us  with  a  deeply  interesting  description  of  this  singular  passage  in  his 
history.  "  For  my  part,"  said  Bonaparte,  when  at  Malmaison,  "  I  never  hear  the 
sound  of  the  church-bell  in  the  neighbouring  village  without  emotion."  The  pro- 
posal to  restore  the  Catholic  religion  was  listened  to  with  scorn  by  those  savans 
of  Paris,  who  had  all  their  days  been  inveterately  opposed  to  religion.  They 
scowled  upon  and  ridiculed  the  proposal ;  declared  it  was  weakness  in  him  to 
submit  to  superstition  which  had  for  ever  passed  away ;  that  he  needed  no  such 
aid  to  government,  and  that  he  might  do  what  he  pleased.  "  Yes,"  says  he,  "  but 
only  with  regard  to  the  real  and  sensibly  felt  wants  of  France."  The  real  and 
sensibly  felt  wants  which  he  felt  himself,  and  which  the  nation  felt,  were  the 
craving  for  religious  belief  and  worship  suitable  to  their  particular  desires,  and 
fitted  to  meet  and  gratify  them.  The  events  which  followed  the  resolution  taken 
by  Bonaparte — the  negotiations  with  the  Pope,  and  the  setting  up  of  the  Romish 
worship,  and  the  general  enthusiasm  of  the  nation — all  show  how  deeply  planted, 
and  how  strong  is  the  religious  affection  in  the  human  heart.  "  Whether  true 
or  false,  sublime  or  ridiculous,"  is  the  reflection  of  the  historian,  "  man  must 
have  a  religion.  Everywhere,  in  all  ages,  in  all  countries,  in  ancient  as  in  modern 
times,  in  civilized  as  well  as  in  barbarian  nations,  we  find  him  a  worshipper  at 
some  altar,  be  it  venerable,  degraded,  or  blood-stained."  * 

Infidelity,  like  religion,  has  existed  in  all  countries,  and  originates  in  that  deep 
impulse  which  drives  man  away  from  God.  But  it  cannot  be  the  prevailing  state 
of  mind  in  a  nation  for  any  length  of  time.  The  reason  is  obvious.  Both  of 
the  principles  to  which  we  have  referred  as  existing  in  the  mind  must  operate. 
Neither  can  be  destroyed,  and  both  are  in  their  nature  active.  But  the  infidel 
principle  can  exist  and  flourish  in  the  very  midst  of  reigning  superstition.  It  de- 
rives its  strongest  nourishment  from  the  rank  and  foul  superstition  fermenting 
around  it.  It  points  to  the  folly  of  the  ignorant  or  deluded  devotee  with  a  sneer, 
and  congratulates  itself  on  its  own  superiority.  Except  when  dreadfully  rankled 
and  reproached,  it  is  not  disposed  to  make  any  sacrifices  for  its  principles,  or 
rather  want  of  principle.  Harassed  by  internal  fears,  it  is  at  heart  cowardly, 
even  when  it  must  seem  courageous.     Coleridge  says  of  blasphemy,  that  "  he 

*  Thiers,  Consulate  and  Empire. 


THE  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND.  53 

uttered  big  words,  and  yet  ever  and  anon  I  observed  that  he  turned  pale  at  his 
own  courage."  Except  at  those  times  when,  as  Burke  says,  it  longs  for  domina- 
tion, it  can  be  quiet,  and  timid,  and  time- serving,  and  securely  cloak  itself  under 
the  old  distinction  of  esoteric  doctrine  for  the  knowing  few,  and  exoteric  doctrine 
for  the  vulgar. 

But  the  religious  or  superstitious  principle  cannot  willingly  allow  its  opposite  to 
reign  or  prevail.  A  negation  can  exist  anywhere ;  it  is  slippery,  easy,  and  ac- 
commodating; but  that  which  is  positive  must  have  space  and  room,  and  it 
would  drive  out  that  which  resists  it.  Hence  the  religious  principle,  as  being  the 
active,  the  undaunted,  the  unaccommodating,  (or  if  you  will)  the  intolerant  prin- 
ciple, must,  in  ordinai-y  circumstances,  be  the  predominant  one. 

Infidelity  soon  learns  that  it  is  its  easiest  policy,  not  openly  to  withstand  the 
popular  religion  and  so  raise  its  enthusiasm,  but  rather  quietly  to  insinuate  itself 
like  a  liquid  through  certain  appropriate  veins  and  channels  of  the  body  corporate, 
till  it  has  soaked  the  whole  in  its  own  coldness  and  dampness.  Hence  religion  is 
bold,  uncompromising,  and  resolute,  either  reigning  or  seeking  to  reign;  while  in- 
fidelity, as  seen,  for  instance,  in  Hume  and  Gibbon,  the  Neological  critics  of  Ger- 
many, and  the  modern  school  of  Pantheists,  is  cowering  and  cunning ;  dealing 
much  in  innuendo  and  insinuation  ;  generally  walking  with  soft  and  stealthy  steps, 
satisfied  with  freedom  from  restraint,  and  quiet  indulgences  ;  and  fearing  nothing 
so  much  as  an  earnest  and  pui-e  religion  disturbing  its  complacency,  and  making 
it  doubt  of  its  own  doubts.  The  historians  referred  to  can  tolerate  the  grossest 
superstition ;  the  one  can  excuse  Popery,  and  the  other  apologize  for  the  most 
licentious  Paganism;  and  their  wrath  is  stirred  up,  only  when  a  pure  religion  is 
exhibited  in  the  lives  of  the  Puritans  of  the  17  th  century,  or  of  the  primitive 
Christians. 

It  cannot  be  doubted,  we  think,  that  the  prevalence  of  infidelity  in  France  was 
promoted  and  hastened  by  the  warm  sentimentalism  of  Rousseau,  more  than  even 
by  the  acute  exposures  and  ridicule  of  Voltaire.  In  the  writings  of  the  latter,  in- 
fidelity is  exhibited  too  much  in  its  leanness  and  nakedness  to  offer  any  attractions 
to  the  heart.  The  sceptical  principle,  no  doubt,  is  gratified,  and  gloats  over  his 
pages;  but  the  opposite  principle  rebels,  and  swells  up  in  a  regurgitation  of  feel- 
ing. On  the  other  hand,  the  religious  principle  is  deceived,  at  least  for  a  time,  by 
the  gorgeous  drapery  of  sentiment,  underneath  which  Rousseau  hides  the  hideous 
skeleton  of  infidelity.  His  sentimental  faith  and  doctrinal  scepticism  served  for  a 
time  to  satisfy  the  deeper  cravings  of  the  human  heart.  But  the  mask,  a  thin  one 
after  all,  was  soon  stripped  off.  If  Voltaire  set  the  conscience  against  the  intel- 
lect, Rousseau's  writings  set  the  intellect  against  the  heart;  and  the  contest  was 
painful  to  those  who  did  not  wish  to  be  disturbed  by  an  internal  schism,  'f  be 
struggle  was,  as  it  were,  embodied  and  acted  in  the  unseemly  contest  between 
Hume  and  Rousseau.  The  mind  of  France,  torn  for  a  time,  soon  demanded  some- 
thing more  consistent ;  and  this  it  found  in  the  Genie  du  Ckristianisme;  and  the 
nation,  converted  to  infidelity  by  Rousseau,  was  reconverted  to  superstition  by 
Chateaubriand.  The  writings  of  the  latter  have  many  of  the  same  elements  of 
power  as  the  former,  and  both  address  the  two  opposing  feelings  of  man's  religious 
nature.  There  are  passages  of  Chateaubriand,  and  more  particularly  of  his  quon- 
dam disciple  Lamartine,  which  show,  that  amidst  superabounding  faith  of  senti- 
ment, there  is  a  great  deficiency  of  faith  in  truth ;  that,  while  there  is  sufficient 
glowing  enthusiasm  to  satisfy  the  cravings  of  natural  religion,  there  is  yet  enough 
of  latitude  of  doctrine  to  allow  of  the  free  working  of  pride  and  self-righteousness- 
Pantheism  is  the  form  in  which  infidelity  prevails  on  the  Continent  of  Europe  in 


54  SCHISM  IN  THE  HUMAN  SOUL. 

the  present  clay :  and  by  its  illusions,  it  satisfies  many  of  those  appetencies  of  l&e 
mind  which  would  shrink  from  gaunt  and  grim  Atheism.  It  pictures  a  fantasy 
with  which  the  imagination  may  hold  communion,  but  not  of  such  a  holy  bright- 
ness as  to  drive  back  the  spirit  with  an  oppressive  sense  of  demerit.  Indeed,  sin 
can  be  regarded  as  no  barrier  in  the  way  of  intercourse  with  the  divinity  of  this 
system,  for  evil  is  just  one  of  his  own  developments.  .Ample  and  accommodating, 
it  professes  to  embrace  within  it  all  religions,  and  actually  embraces  all  dead  reli- 
gions; and,  like  the  ancient  Roman  superstition  of  the  days  of  the  emperors,  it  is 
tolerant  of  all  religions,  always  excepting  a  living  and  uncompromising  scriptural 
religion  which  refuses  to  enter  into  alliance  with  it ;  just  as  the  emperors  erected 
temples  to  the  grim  divinities  of  Egypt  and  of  the  other  nations  that  they  con- 
quered, and  yet  virulently  persecuted  the  Christians.  Its  fantasies  may  delude 
for  a  time  the  minds  of  the  rich,  the  idle,  and  the  refined  ;  but  meanwhile  there 
will  be  a  feeling  of  emptiness  and  want  in  the  depths  of  their  bosoms ;  and  the 
great  mass  of  practical  men  will  scorn  the  delusion  which  would  be  practised  upon 
them,  and  rush  to  a  real  infidelity  or  a  real  superstition,  recollecting  only  one  lesson 
learned  in  the  school  of  Pantheism,  and  that  is  a  fatal  habit  of  excusing  moral 
evil  as  a  step  towards  good,  or  as  a  necessary  part  of  a  beneficent  development. 

Looking  to  the  present  state  of  the  Continent  of  Europe,  it  might  seem  as  if 
infidelity,  under  its  various  forms,  were  for  a  time  to  be  predominant.  France  is 
not  now  the  only  nation  in  which  it  has  taken  possession  of  the  thinking  minds, 
which  are  always  the  most  influential  minds  ;  it  prevails  to  a  greater  or  less  extent 
in  the  majority  of  the  Continental  countries.  If  less  sanguine  and  buoyant,  if  less 
confident  and  bold,  than  immediately  before  the  first  French  Revolution,  it  is  more 
cautious  and  calculating,  for  it  has  learned  some  prudence  and  policy  from  its 
reverses.  Working  silently,  and  under  cover  of  a  respect  for  all  religions  as  alike 
true,  that  is  alike  false,  it  is  working  all  the  more  surely ;  and  its  scattered  forces 
will  at  length  come  to  a  head,  and  it  will  openly  proclaim  itself,  and  enter  upon 
the  death-struggle  for  which  it  is  preparing.  But  whatever  be  its  temporary 
triumphs,  it  cannot  be  permanently  successful.  The  ancient  superstition  of 
Europe,  containing  as  it  does  the  strength  of  the  large  portion  of  truth  which  it 
embraces,  and  all  the  strength  of  corrupt  human  nature  besides,  will  be  found 
more  than  a  match  for  it,  and  will  come  forth  from  victory  with  a  bolder  front, 
and  claiming  a  more  formidable  authority.  Is  it  in  the  midst  of  these  contests 
that  the  truth  of  heaven,  by  the  immediate  interposition  of  God,  is  to  shine  upon 
our  earth,  and  scatter  all  error  by  the  brightness  of  its  rising  ? 


SECT.  V. — SCHISM  IN  THE  HUMAN  SOUL. 

Man  is  not  only  not  at  peace  with  God — strange  and  para- 
doxical as  the  language  may  sound,  he  is  not  even  at  peace  with 
himself.     There  is  a  schism  in  the  very  soul  itself. 

Two  facts  here  present  themselves — the  one,  that  man,  by  the 
very  constitution  of  his  mind,  approves  of  moral  good,  and  dis- 
approves of  moral  evil ;  the  other,  that  he  neglects  the  good  and 
commits  the  evil.  These  two  facts  can  be  established  as  clearly 
as  any  that  fall  under  the  cognizance  of  the  human  conscious- 
ness ;  and  we  must  ever  hold  that  the  evidence  supplied  by  the 


SCHISM  IN  THE  HUMAN  SOUL.  55 

internal  consciousness  is,  to  say  the  least  of  it,  as  certain  and 
immediate  as  that  of  the  senses. 

On  the  one  hand,  man  is  possessed  of  certain  moral  qualities. 
We  may  have  our  own  individual  opinion  as  to  the  psychological 
nature  of  these  qualities.  But  for  the  purpose  at  present  in  view 
we  care  not  how  they  be  explained,  whether  they  be  described  as 
belonging  to  the  intellectual  or  emotional  part  of  man's  nature  ; 
whether,  with  Butler,  we  hold  the  conscience  to  be  simple  and 
indivisible,  or  regard  it,  with  Sir  James  Mackintosh,  as  the 
necessary  result  of  certain  other  operations  of  the  human  mind. 
Dr.  Chalmers  very  justly  compares  the  disputes  in  regard  to  the 
origin  or  structure  of  the  conscience,  to  an  antiquarian  contro- 
versy respecting  the  first  formation  and  subsequent  changes  of 
some  court  of  government,  the  rightful  authority  of  whose  de- 
cisions and  acts  is  at  the  same  time  fully  recognised.  This  moral 
nature  of  man  is  as  essential  to  him  as  any  of  his  other  attri- 
butes. The  evidence  of  its  existence  is  so  full,  that  we  should 
as  soon  believe  that  man  has  no  such  faculty  as  the  understand- 
ing, or  that  he  has  no  emotional  nature,  as  that  he  is  without  a 
conscience.  Now,  this  conscience  tells  him,  and  that,  too,  in 
spite  of  the  sophisms  of  the  understanding  when  it  happens  to 
be  perverted,  or  of  the  pleadings  of  the  passions  when  they  are 
bent  upon  indulgence,  that  there  is  an  indelible  distinction 
between  good  and  evil,  and  points  to  a  Power  upholding  this 
distinction  in  the  government  of  the  universe. 

But,  on  the  other  hand,  these,  fundamental  and  indestructible 
principles  in  the  human  soul  can  be  made  to  condemn  the  pos- 
sessor. Ethical  writers  may  overlook  the  fact,  but  they  cannot 
deny  it  when  the  question  is  put  to  them.  Mankind  in  general 
may  be  inclined  to  avoid  the  subject  as  a  painful  one,  but  it 
requires  only  to  be  brought  under  their  notice  in  order  to  com- 
mand their  assent.  Nay,  we  believe  that  they  are  labouring  per- 
petually under  a  secret  consciousness  of  such  a  contradiction  in 
their  nature,  and  that  their  instinctive  avoidance  of  all  allusion 
to  it  arises  from  this  very  cause.  They  shrink  from  it  as  from  a 
fearful  secret,  as  we  have  found  persons  shrinking  from  the  least 
allusion  to  a  hidden  humiliating  disease  or  bodily  deformity  in 
their  persons,  or  to  certain  unfortunate  events  in  their  previous 
life.  Certain  it  is,  that  when  his  conduct  is  brought  under  review, 
man  is  condemned  by  the  very  principles  in  his  own  bosom. 


56  SCHISM  IN  THE  HUMAN  SOUL. 

The  wonderful  circumstance  is,  that  these  things  subsist  to- 
gether. Yet,  here  they  are,  co-existing  in  the  same  breast,  and 
apparently  about  to  exist  there  for  ever,  and  without  an  adjust- 
ment ;  for  man  cannot  rid  himself  of  his  conscience  on  the  one 
hand,  nor  of  his  sins  on  the  other.  The  judge  is  seated  for  ever 
upon  his  throne,  and  the  prisoner  is  for  ever  at  his  bar ;  and 
there  is  no  end  of  the  assize,  for  the  prisoner  is  ever  committing 
new  offences  to  call  forth  new  sentences  from  the  judge. 

The  double  truth,  which  explains  the  double  fact,  has  been 
grasped  by  Pascal,  and  developed  with  singular  conciseness  and 
beauty.  "  The  greatness  and  misery  of  man  being  alike  con- 
spicuous, religion,  in  order  to  be  true,  must  necessarily  teach  us 
that  he  has  in  himself  some  noble  principles  of  greatness,  and  at 
the  same  time  some  profound  source  of  misery.  For  true  reli- 
gion cannot  answer  its  character,  otherwise  than  by  such  an 
entire  knowledge  of  our  nature  as  perfectly  to  understand  all 
that  is  great  and  all  that  is  miserable  in  it,  together  with  the 
reasons  of  the  one  and  of  the  other."  "  The  philosophers  never 
furnish  men  with  sentiments  suitable  to  these  two  states.  They 
inculcated  a  notion  either  of  absolute  grandeur,  or  of  hopeless 
degradation,  neither  of  which  is  the  true  condition  of  man. 
From  the  principles  which  I  develop,  you  may  discover  the  cause 
of  those  various  contrarieties  which  have  astonished  and  divided 
mankind.  Now,  then,  consider  all  the  great  and  glorious  aspi- 
rations which  the  sense  of  so  many  miseries  is  not  able  to  extin- 
guish, and  inquire  whether  they  can  proceed  from  any  other 
cause  save  a  higher  nature.  Had  man  never  fallen,  he  would 
have  enjoyed  eternal  truth  and  happiness  ;  and  had  man  never 
been  otherwise  than  corrupt,  he  would  have  retained  no  idea 
either  of  truth  or  happiness."  "  So  manifest  is  it,  that  we  once 
were  in  a  state  of  perfection,  from  which  we  are  now  unhappily 
fallen."  "  It  is  astonishing  that  the  mystery  which  is  farthest 
removed  from  our  knowledge  (I  mean  that  of  the  transmission 
of  original  sin)  should  be  that  without  which  we  can  have  no 
knowledge  of  ourselves.  It  is  in  this  abyss  that  the  clue  to  our 
condition  takes  its  turns  and  windings,  insomuch  that  man  is 
more  incomprehensible  without  this  mystery  than  this  mystery 
is  incomprehensible  to  man/'* 

*  Pascal's  Thoughts. 


BEVIEW  OF  THE  PHENOMENA  BEFORE  SPECIFIED.  57 


CHAPTER  III. 

THE  ACTUAL  WORLD,  AND  THE  VIEW  WHICH  IT  GIVES 
OF  ITS  GOVERNOR. 

SECT.  I. — PARTICULAR  REVIEW  OF  THE  FIVE  PHENOMENA  BEFORE 

SPECIFIED. 

The  phenomena  which  we  have  been  considering  are  not 
small  and  insignificant,  nor  are  they  single  and  isolated ;  they 
are  large  in  themselves,  and  spread  over  the  wide  surface  of  the 
world  and  the  world's  history.  They  are  not  mere  points  on 
which  a  perverted  ingenuity  may  construct  an  inverted  pyramid, 
but  a  wide  base  on  which  reason  may  rear  the  largest  super- 
structure. They  go  far  down  as  among  the  deepest  strata  in 
the  structure  of  our  world,  and  they  mount  up  to  the  view  as 
among  the  crowning  heights  of  the  landscape. 

They  are  facts  on  which  the  thinking  portion  of  mankind 
have  been  prone  to  meditate  in  all  ages  and  countries,  and  as 
they  do  so,  have  often  become  bewildered,  and  have  lost  them- 
selves in  ever-thickening  mazes.  How  melancholy  the  feeling 
of  the  elder  Pliny  ! — "  A  being  full  of  contradictions,  man  is 
the  most  wretched  of  creatures,  since  the  other  creatures  have 
no  wants  transcending  the  bounds  of  their  nature.  Man  is  full 
of  desires  and  wants  that  reach  to  infinity,  and  can  never  be 
satisfied.  His  nature  is  a  lie,  uniting  the  greatest  poverty  with 
the  greatest  pride.  Among  these  so  great  evils,  the  best  thing 
God  has  bestowed  on  man  is  the  power  to  take  his  own  life."* 
Sceptics  have  seen,  as  they  could  not  but  see,  these  darker 
features  of  our  world,  and  have  made  their  own  use  of  them. 
They  have  commonly  dwelt  among  these  mazes  as  robbers  live 

*  We  quote  the  condensed  account  by  Neander.    Int.  Gen.  Ch.  Hist.    It  is  taken 
from  various  places,  but  especially  Natur.  Histor.,  L.  ii.  C.  vii. 


58  PARTICULAR  REVIEW  OF  THE 

in  dens,  and  caves,  and  forests ;  and  thence  they  have  issued 
to  plunder  all  that  is  good,  to  waste  all  that  is  lovely,  and  te 
allure  the  young  and  adventurous  to  their  haunts,  in  the  hope 
held  out  to  them  of  freedom  from  all  restraint.  Strange  as  it 
may  seem,  our  modern  philosophers  have  generally  left  these 
facts  very  much  out  of  account  in  constructing  their  systems, 
and  have  jostled  them  into  a  kind  of  separate  chapter  or  ap- 
pendix, in  which  they  treat  of  objections  to  a  theory  already 
formed. 

The  sceptic  has  revelled  in  this  field  as  the  raven  revels  in 
corruption.  He  finds  a  kind  of  fiendish  delight  in  pointing  to 
the  apparent  oversights  and  irregularities,  blunders  and  crimes, 
in  the  Divine  government.  The  Greek  sophists  toiled  in  this 
work,  and  rejoiced  in  the  doubt  and  confusion  which  they  intro- 
duced into  human  speculation.  Cotta,  the  academic  in  Cicero  de 
naturd  deorum — representing  that  large  portion  of  the  learned 
who  wish  to  inquire  into  everything,  but  to  believe  as  little  as 
possible,  who  ask,  What  is  truth,  ?  while  not  willing  to  wait  for 
the  reply — fondly  dwells  on  the  misfortunes  and  sufferings  to 
which  those  supposed  to  be  good  are  so  often  exposed.  "  Why, 
therefore,  did  the  Carthaginians  oppress  in  Spain  the  two  Scipios, 
among  the  best  and  wisest  of  men  ?"  &c.  Volney,  in  wander- 
ing over  the  ruins  of  empires,  feels  a  pleasure  allied  to  that  of 
the  conquerors  who  battered  down  the  walls,  and  set  fire  to  the 
houses  and  temples  of  depopulated  cities ;  he  seems  as  if  rid- 
ding himself  of  an  enemy  who  stood  in  his  way,  and  who  was 
thwarting  the  schemes  on  which  his  heart  was  set. 

Our  popular  writers  on  natural  religion  contemplate  with 
great  interest  a  particular  class  of  phenomena,  and,  founding  on 
them,  they  demonstrate  that  God  is  a  being  of  infinite  benevo- 
lence. But  the  sceptic  appears,  and  points  to  another  order  of 
facts,  scarcely,  if  at  all,  less  numerous  and  momentous  ;  and 
insists,  that  if  the  one  class  of  facts  proves  that  God  is  good,  the 
other,  on  the  very  same  principle,  proves  that  God  is  malevo- 
lent, or  that  he  takes  no  interest  in  the  world.  Placing  the  one 
of  these  conclusions  over  against  the  other,  they  make  them,  like 
antagonist  forces,  destroy  each  other,  and  leave  nothing  but  a 
blank  and  universal  void.  But  instead  of  making  them  oppose 
each  other,  let  us  seek  to  combine  them.  We  may  agree  with 
the  theologians  who  regard  them  as  not  contradictory,  while  we 


FIVE  PHENOMENA  BEFORE  SPECIFIED.  59 

cannot  approve  of  their  method  of  looking  to  the  one  and  not 
at  all  to  the  other,  in  forming  an  idea  of  the  Divine  character. 
We  may  agree  with  the  sceptic  in  insisting  that  the  apparent 
irregularities  and  disorders  to  be  found  in  the  world  should  be 
taken  into  account,  as  well  as  those  phenomena  which  specially 
reflect  the  benevolence  of  God ;  but  instead  of  admitting  his 
conclusion,  we  may,  from  the  very  combination,  attain  to  a 
larger  and  juster  comprehension  of  the  state  of  this  world,  of 
the  manner  in  which  it  is  governed,  and  the  attributes  of  the 
Governor. 

"  When,"  says  Hume,  in  his  Essay  on  Providence  and  a  Future 
State,  "we  infer  any  particular  cause  from  an  effect,  we  must 
proportion  the  one  to  the  other."  The  general  principle  is  a 
sound  one  ;  and  by  means  of  it,  Hume  most  effectually  destroys 
all  those  flimsy  fabrics  which  sentimental  writers  have  reared  by 
putting  together  all  that  is  fair  and  attractive,  and  leaving  out 
of  view  all  that  is  dark  and  awful.  But  while,  by  carrying  out 
this  principle,  he  has  successfully  undermined  that  weak  and 
superficial  religion  which  admits  nothing  but  what  is  flattering 
to  human  pride,  he  has  not  used  it,  nor  could  it  be  expected  of 
the  sceptic  that  he  should  use  it,  for  the  uprearing  of  the  fabric 
of  truth.  Yet  the  work  of  building,  whatever  the  infidel  may 
say  to  the  contrary,  is  always  a  greater  and  nobler  work  than 
that  of  destroying ;  and  the  fact  that  Hume  has  scarcely  de- 
veloped or  demonstrated  a  single  great  truth  in  his  philosophical 
works,  is  a  proof  that  there  was  some  defect  in  his  mind,  both 
intellectually  and  morally.*  He  has  shown  that,  in  the  common 
reasonings  on  the  subject  of  natural  theology,  the  cause  is  not 
proportioned  to  the  effect,  and  that  there  is  much  in  the  effect 
which  finds  no  place  in  the  cause.  But  in  doing  so,  he  must  ac- 
knowledge that  there  are  certain  phenomena  which  do  constitute 
an  effect,  and  that  this  effect  must  have  a  cause  ;  and  all  that  we 
demand  is,  that  he  follow  out  his  own  principle,  and  proportion 
the  cause  to  the  effect,  and  find  something  in  the  cause  corre- 
sponding to  all  that  we  see  in  the  effect. 

The  phenomena  contemplated  by  the  man  disposed  to  religion, 

*  "I  am  apt,"  says  Hume,  -writing  to  Hutcheson,  "to  suspect,  in  general,  that 
most  of  my  reasonings  will  be  more  useful  by  furnishing  hints  and  exciting  people's 
curiosity,  than  as  containing  any  principles  that  will  augment  the  stock  of  know- 
ledge that  must  pass  to  future  ages."     (See  Life  by  Burton.) 


60  PARTICULAR  REVIEW  OF  THE 

and  those  gloated  over  by  the  man  inclined  to  doubt,  do  seem  at 
first  sight  opposed  to  one  another.  They  give,  in  consequence, 
some  appearance  of  support  to  that  theory  which  prevailed  so 
extensively  for  ages  in  the  East  among  the  meditative  spirits 
who  dream  away  existence  under  a  relaxing  climate,  and  accord- 
ing to  which  there  are  two  parallel  or  co-ordinate  ruling  powers 
in  the  world  ever  contending  with  each  other.  The  speculation 
is  worthy  of  being  alluded  to,  in  so  far  as  it  was  regarded  by 
some  of  the  deepest  thinkers  of  the  East,  as  furnishing  an  expla- 
nation of  events  otherwise  inexplicable.  In  modern  times,  Bayle 
took  refuge  in  this  theory,  not  because  he  believed  it,  but  because 
it  supplied  him  with  favourable  standing-room,  (and  this  is  what 
the  sceptic  experiences  most  difficulty  in  finding,  because,  in  re- 
moving the  foundation  on  which  all  others  rest,  he  also  takes 
away  the  foundation  on  which  he  himself  should  rest,)  from  which 
he  might  with  greater  effect  play  off  his  fire  indiscriminately  on 
all  sides,  against  religion  and  against  infidelity,  against  the  be- 
liever, and  against  the  doubter  too.  He  and  others  felt  that  the 
theory  was  so  far  plausible  that  it  professed  to  give  an  explana- 
tion of  two  seemingly  opposite  orders  of  facts,  while  other  religious 
schemes  only  furnish  an  explanation  of  one  of  them.  It  is  not 
needful  to  show  wherein  the  weakness  of  this  theoiy  lies.  The 
progress  of  science  has  demonstrated  to  the  satisfaction  of  every 
mind,  that  laws  and  events  which  may  seem  discordant  do  yet 
form  part  of  one  compact  system,  originating  in  one  designing 
mind.  But  if  we  are  not  to  search  for  two  causes  of  the  effects 
exhibited  in  the  world,  we  must,  on  the  principle  laid  down  by 
Hume,  proportion  the  one  cause  to  the  character  of  the  ivhole 
effect* 

*  Philo,  the  advocate  of  scepticism  in  Hume's  Dialogues  on  Natural  Religion, 
endeavours,  upon  a  survey  such  as  we  have  presented,  to  shut  us  up  into  one  or 
other  of  four  hypotheses  regarding  the  first  causes  of  the  universe.  "  That  they 
are  endowed  with  perfect  goodness,  that  they  have  perfect  malice,  that  they  are 
opposite  and  have  both  goodness  and  malice,  that  they  have  neither  goodness  nor 
malice.  Mixed  phenomena  can  never  prove  the  two  former ;  unmixed  principles, 
and  the  uniformity  and  steadiness  of  general  laws,  seem  to  oppose  the  third.  The 
fourth,  therefore,  seems  by  far  the  most  probable." — P.  11.  In  these  Dialogues 
the  academic  Theist  is  represented  as  having  nothing  to  urge  against  this,  and  the 
religious  Theist  (being  a  complete  caricature)  urges  nothing  relevant.  We  regard 
the  fourth  hypothesis  as  completely  disproved  by  the  clear  evidences  of  goodness  in 
the  world,  and  the  whole  phenomena  can  be  explained  on  a  fifth  hypothesis,  being 
that  advanced  in  the  text. 


FIVE  PHENOMENA  BEFORE  SPECIFIED.  61 

We  insist,  then,  that  no  religious  scheme  be  constructed  which 
does  not  take  into  account  these  five  classes  of  phenomena.  Let 
us  contemplate — the  more  frequently  the  better — those  works  of 
God  which  reflect,  as  the  placid  lake,  the  serenity  of  heaven  on 
their  bosom ;  but  let  us  not  forget  to  look  also  at  those  angry  waves 
and  troubled  depths  which  seem  to  say  that  heaven  is  offended. 

Each  of  the  five  classes  of  phenomena  has  a  class  of  pheno- 
mena to  which  it  stands  in  seeming  opposition.  Let  us  review 
them  in  order. 

1.  On  the  one  hand,  there  are  around  and  within  us  abundant 
facts  to  prove  that  God  delights  in  the  happiness  of  his  creatures. 
The  darkest  fears,  the  deepest  jealousies  of  the  human  breast 
cannot  bring  any  man  to  believe  that  God  is  a  malignant  being. 
When  a  disordered  mind  and  an  irritated  temper  would  tempt 
him  to  draw  such  a  conclusion,  he  is  driven  back  instantly  by 
objects  and  feelings  which  stand  up  in  defence  of  God.     But 
strangely  conflicting  with  these  more  pleasing  objects,  there  is 
the  existence  of  suffering,  especially  of  mental  suffering,  often 
intense  and  long-enduring.     With  the  views  which  modern  re- 
search enables  us  to  entertain  of  the  omnipotence  of  God,  we 
cannot  resort  to  the  old  Platonic  idea  of  evil  proceeding  from  the 
restriction  or  limitation  of  the  Divine  power.     But  if  there  be 
design  in  every  part  of  the  works  of  God,  there  must  be  design 
in  the  infliction  of  pain  also.     If  there  be  a  property  in  the  Divine 
character  which  leads  God  to  delight  in  the  happiness  of  his  crea- 
tures, there  must  also  be  a  property — call  it  what  you  please, 
and  explain  it  as  you  may — which  leads  him,  in  certain  circum- 
stances, to  inflict  pain.     We  may  suppose  that  there  are  two 
separate  attributes  having  their  root  in  the  Divine  character ;  or 
we  may  suppose  them  to  be  two  branches  of  the  same  attribute  ; 
we  may  suppose  them  to  be  what  are  called  the  benevolence  and 
justice  of  a  God  essentially  good  both  in  his  benevolence  and 
justice ;  or  we  may  suppose  them  but  two  modifications  of  the 
one  attribute  of  goodness ; — but  analyze  them  as  we  may,  and 
dispute  as  we  may  about  our  explanations,  and  as  to  whether 
these  explanations  differ  in  words  or  ideas,  the  conclusion  rests 
on  indisputable  facts,  that  if  God  is  led  by  his  nature  to  propa- 
gate happiness  throughout  a  boundless  universe,  he  is  also  led  in 
certain  portions  of  it,  to  ordain  suffering.     Behold  in  the  storm 
and  in  the  sunshine,  in  health  and  in  disease,  in  wide-spread 


62  PARTICULAR  REVIEW  OF  THE 

happiness  and  crowded  misery,  the  proofs  both  of  the  goodness 
and  severity  of  God. 

But  why  does  God  inflict  this  misery  ?  Let  us  look  to  the  other 
phenomena,  and  inquire  if  they  can  yield  us  any  light. 

2.  It  would  be  vain  to  deny  that  man  is  allowed  a  large  share 
of  liberty.  He  feels  it,  he  enjoys  it,  he  uses  it,  and  he  abuses  it. 
He  is  endowed  with  godlike  powers — a  memory  that  enables 
him  to  live  the  past  over  again,  an  understanding  admitting  of 
great  and  indefinite  improvement,  a  fancy  fluttering  among 
pictures  richer  than  any  realities,  an  imagination  which  stretches 
away  into  the  infinite,  and  a  heart  of  such  wide  desires  that  the 
whole  world  cannot  satisfy  them. — Then  he  is  placed  in  a  position 
affording  room  for  the  exercise  of  his  faculties,  he  has  a  field  of 
action  broader  than  he  can  occupy,  and  the  means  of  exerting  the 
mightiest  influence.  There  are  persons  who,  when  they  contem- 
plate these  facts,  delight  to  speak  of  the  dignity  of  man's  nature 
and  position.  He  is  a  god,  they  conclude,  is  so  honoured  by  the 
supreme  God,  and  should  be  so  honoured  by  us.  Dr.  Channing 
is  the  most  eloquent  representative  of  this  class  of  writers,  who 
would  have  us  to  look  on  human  nature  with  unmingled  feelings 
of  pride  and  satisfaction,  and  who  represent  all  who  speak  of 
mankind  as  degenerate  as  being  the  greatest  enemies  of  the  race.* 

But  the  picture,  however  pleasing,  is  not  consistent  with  other 
and  palpable  facts.  If  man  has  much  freedom  allowed  him,  he 
is  also  put  under  innumerable  restraints.  His  mightiest  under- 
takings often  end  in  confusion,  or  in  results  precisely  opposite  to 
those  contemplated  by  him.  He  is  interfered  with,  checked, 
punished  on  all  hands.  He  is  driven  back  when  he  is  most  eager, 
disappointed  when  his  hopes  may  seem  to  be  founded  on  the  best 
evidence.  Cross  events  which  we  call  accidents,  adversitv  under 
its  various  forms,  besides  the  obvious  restraints  arising  from  the 
direct  working  of  the  constitution  of  things  in  which  he  is  placed, 
all  combine  to  render  him  helpless  and  dependent.  He  seems  to 
be  trusted,  and  yet  he  is  distrusted.  He  has  liberty — of  this  he 
cannot  doubt — but  he  is  ever  watched  as  if  there  was  a  risk  of 
his  abusing  it,  nay,  restricted  as  if  he  had  already  abused  the 
liberty  granted  him.  All  nature  proclaims  that  God  is  good, 
and  yet  seems  to  indicate  that,  in  regard  to  this  world,  God  is  a 
"jealous  God." 

*  See  Sermon  on  "  Honour  all  men." 


FIVE  PHENOMENA  BEFOKE  SPECIFIED.  63 

These  phenomena  exhibit  the  character  of  God  under  an  aspect 
in  which  many  are  unwilling  to  contemplate  it.  Other  pheno- 
mena show  that  God's  character  comes  to  be  thus  exhibited, 
because  of  the  relation  in  which  he  stands  to  man. 

3.  The  unwearied  care  which  God  exercises  over  this  world  is 
a  theme  on  which  the  piously-disposed  mind  delights  to  dwell. 
It  feels  a  peculiar  interest  in  tracing  the  wisdom  and  goodness 
of  God  in  ordaining  and  overruling  all  things  ;  and  rejoices  to 
discover  that,  while  controlling  and  superintending  the  grand 
affairs  of  nations  and  of  worlds,  he  is  also  providing  for  the 
meanest  of  the  wants  of  the  most  insignificant  of  his  creatures. 
It  is  manifest  that  the  greatest  events  are  not  beyond  his  con- 
trol ;  and  yet  that  those  which  may  seem  the  least  are  not 
beneath  his  notice. 

In  seeming  contradiction  to  all  this  superintending  care,  there 
are  circumstances  which  look  as  if  God  had  abandoned  this 
world  to  itself,  and  ceased  to  take  any  oversight  of  it.  Near 
though  God  may  seem,  he  is  felt  to  be  at  an  infinite  distance. 
Man  cannot  reach  him  by  any  of  his  struggles.  He  cannot  rise 
to  him  by  his  highest  aspirations.  These  heavens,  when  he 
looks  up  to  them,  seem  to  be  covered  with  a  perpetual  cloud. 
There  must  be  something  coming  between,  when  the  beams  of 
God's  love,  shining  perpetually  on  all  holy  creatures,  are  ob- 
structed in  regard  to  man.  That  intervening  cloud  cannot  come 
from  the  heavens,  which  it  merely  hides  from  our  eyes,  and 
must  rise  up  therefore  from  the  danlps  of  this  earth.  In  short, 
it  seems  as  if  the  good  God  had  been  justly  offended,  and 
offended  with  something  in  the  character  of  man. 

To  determine  what  this  is,  we  must  now  look  to  the  character 
of  man  in  its  relation  to  God. 

4.  In  looking  to  the  nature  of  man,  we  find  that  there  is  an 
invariable  characteristic  by  which  he  is  distinguished,  and  that 
is  a  law  in  the  heart  testifying  in  behalf  of  what  is  good.  This 
is  of  the  nature  of  a  fundamental  principle.  It  may  be  ob- 
scured or  perverted,  but  cannot  be  extinguished  or  destroyed. 
But  this  same  moral  nature  which  gives  its  testimony  in  behalf 
of  God,  gives  its  testimony  against  man.  That  which  God 
indicates  in  his  dealings  towards  man,  man  shows  that  he  feels 
by  his  conduct  towards  God.  God  shows  that  he  is  offended 
with  something,  and  man  shows  what  this  is  by  taking  guilt  to 


64  PARTICULAR  REVIEW  OF  THE 

himself.  The  idea,  the  very  name  of  God,  is  associated  in  the 
human  mind  with  fear.  The  very  propensity  to  utter  blasphemy 
proves  that  the  party  is  conscious  of  some  strong  inward  feeling 
to  which  he  would  show  his  superiority.  Man  acknowledges 
that  God  is  good,  and  that  his  law  is  good ;  but  he  feels  that 
this  good  God  and  good  law  must  condemn  him,  and  that  they 
must  do  so  just  because  they  are  good.  No  position  can  be 
more  unhappy.  Were  he  prepared,  when  this  is  his  feeling,  to 
prostrate  himself  before  God  and  confess  his  utter  unworthiness, 
his  case  would  not  be  so  hopeless.  But  it  is  the  worst  feature 
of  his  condition,  that  while  he  acknowledges  that  God  is  good, 
and  that  God  is  good  in  condemning  him,  he  seeks,  were  it 
possible,  to  flee  from  God,  or  hide  himself  from  him.  Conscious 
all  the  time  that  he  is  wrong,  he  is  driven,  by  mingled  pride 
and  passion,  to  carry  on  the  contest,  or  at  least  to  take  no  proper 
steps  to  heal  the  breach. 

We  have  seen  a  piece  of  rock  lying  bare  and  exposed  at  the 
base  of  a  huge  precipice.  From  the  shape  of  that  lesser  rock 
you  see  that  it  is  a  fragment,  that  it  was  once  joined  to  the 
rocks  above,  that  the  frosts  and  storms  of  winter  have  loosened 
it,  and  there  it  lies  useless  and  cumbersome,  and  utterly  in- 
capable of  being  united  by  human  art  to  the  parent  mass  from 
which  it  has  been  dissevered.  It  is  a  picture  of  the  soul  of  man, 
torn  from  its  God  and  fallen  into  a  dreadful  abyss.  We  have 
only  to  examine  that  soul  to  discover  that  it  was  once  united  to 
God,  but  that  it  has  now  bdfen  cut  off,  and  with  no  hope,  so  far 
as  human  agency  is  concerned,  of  the  two  being  re-united. 

5.  Looking  internally,  and  at  the  soul  itself,  we  find  that  not 
only  is  there  a  schism  between  man  and  his  Maker,  but  in  the 
very  nature  of  man  himself.  He  has  in  his  heart  a  law,  which 
condemns  the  very  heart  in  which  it  is  placed.  He  approves  of 
a  deed,  and  neglects  to  perform  it ;  he  disapproves  of  a  deed, 
and  rushes  to  the  commission  of  it.  Moral  excellence  is  lauded, 
and  yet  loathed  by  him  ;  while  sin  is  condemned,  and  yet  cher- 
ished. All  the  lines  of  external  proof,  we  have  seen,  seem  to 
lead  to  man  as  the  offending  party ;  and  when  we  examine  his 
character,  we  find  him  conscious  of  the  guilt,  and  looking  as  if 
he  was  the  culprit  whose  conduct  has  entailed  such  misery 
upon  our  world. 

We  have  thus  endeavoured  to  converge  the  scattered  rays 


FIVE  PHENOMENA  BEFORE  SPECIFIED.  65 

which  are  to  be  found  in  the  darkness  of  this  world  into  a  focus, 


j 


that  we  may  throw  light  upon  two  topics  of  surpassing  interest. 
— the  character  of  God,  and  his  relationship  to  man.  Nature, 
when  rightly  interpreted,  seems  to  show  that  there  is  in  God  a 
property  or  attribute,  call  it  what  you  please — by  the  word  holi- 
ness, righteousness,  or  justice — which  leads  him  to  inflict  suffer- 
ing, a;;d  to  intimate  his  displeasure  against  sin  and  those  who 
commit  it.  It  would  appear  that  God  indicates  his  displeasure 
against  man,  and  men  universally  take  guilt  to  themselves. 
God  hideth  himself  from  man,  and  man  hideth  himself  from 
God.  The  two  stand  apart,  as  we  have  seen  two  opposing  cliffs 
which  had  been  rent  asunder  by  some  dreadful  catastrophe  of 
nature,  and  have  now  a  yawning  gulf  between  ;  they  look  as  if 
they  had  been  united,  and  as  if  they  might  be  united  once  more 
by  some  strong  power  brought  to  bear  upon  them,  but  they 
continue  to  stand  apart  and  frown  upon  each  other. 

"  They  stood  aloof,  the  scars  remaining, 
Like  cliffs  that  had  been  rent  asunder ; 
A  dreary  sea  now  flows  between  : 
But  neither  heat,  nor  frost,  nor  thunder, 
Shall  wholly  do  away,  I  ween, 
The  marks  of  that  which  once  hath  been." — Coleridge. 

So  far  as  these  facts  throw  light  on  the  character  of  man,  we 
are  happy  to  be  able  to  quote  from  those  Thoughts  of  Pascal, 
which  are  in  some  respects  loose  as  the  leaves  of  the  sibyl,  but 
which  carry  us  further  into  the  mysteries  of  this  world  than 
the  leaves  referred  to  were  supposed  to  carry  the  early  Romans 
into  the  future  history  of  their  country.  "  If  man  was  not 
made  for  God,  why  can  he  enjoy  no  happiness  but  in  God  ?  If 
man  was  made  for  God,  why  is  he  so  opposed  to  God  ?  Man 
is  at  a  loss  where  to  fix  himself.  He  is  unquestionably  out  of 
his  way,  and  feels  within  himself  the  remains  of  a  happy  state 
which  he  cannot  retrieve.  He  searches  in  every  direction  with 
solicitude,  but  without  success,  encompassed  with  unquenchable 
darkness.  Hence  arose  the  contest  among  the  philosophers,  some 
of  whom  endeavoured  to  exalt  man  by  displaying  his  greatness, 
and  others  to  abase  him  by  representing  his  misery.  And  what 
seems  more  strange  is,  that  each  party  borrowed  the  arguments 
of  the  other  to  establish  their  own  opinion.  For  the  misery  of 
man  may  be  inferred  from  his  greatness,  and  his  greatness  from 

E 


66  OTHER  GENERAL  PHENOMENA  FITTED  TO 

his  misery.  Thus  the  one  sect  demonstrated  his  misery  the 
more  satisfactorily,  in  that  they  inferred  it  from  his  greatness ; 
and  the  other  the  more  clearly  proved  his  greatness,  because 
they  deduced  it  from  his  misery.  Whatever  was  offered  by  the 
one  to  establish  his  greatness,  served  only  to  evince  his  misery, 
it  being  more  miserable  to  have  fallen  from  the  greater  height. 
And  the  converse  is  equally  true.  So  that,  in  this  endless  circle 
of  dispute,  each  helps  to  advance  his  adversary's  cause  ;  for  it  is 
certain  that  the  more  men  are  enlightened,  the  more  they  will 
discover  of  human  misery  and  human  greatness.  In  a  word, 
man  knows  himself  to  be  miserable :  he  is  therefore  miserable 
because  he  knows  himself  to  be  so :  But  he  is  also  eminently 
great,  because  he  knows  himself  to  be  miserable.  What  a 
chimera  then  is  man — what  a  novelty — what  a  chaos — what  a 
subject  of  contradiction  !  A  judge  of  all  things,  and  yet  a  worm 
of  the  earth  ;  the  depositary  of  the  truth,  and  yet  a  medley  of 
uncertainties  ;  the  glory  and  the  scandal  of  the  universe.  If  he 
exalt  himself,  I  humble  him  ;  if  he  humble  himself,  I  exalt  him, 
and  press  him  with  his  own  inconsistencies,  till  he  comprehends 
himself  to  be  an  incomprehensible  monster." 

SECT.  II. — OTHER  GENERAL  PHENOMENA  FITTED  TO  THROW  LIGHT 
ON  THE  CONDITION  OF  THE  WORLD. 

So  far  we  have  proceeded  in  an  inductive  method,  drawing 
conclusions  from  well  established  facts,  all  but  universally  re- 
cognised. We  may  turn  to  some  more  general  considerations, 
fitted  to  throw  light  on  the  present  state  and  future  prospects 
of  the  world. 

When  the  Deity,  in  the  depths  of  eternity,  was  purposing  (to 
use  human  language)  the  creation  of  substances  different  from 
himself,  we  can  conceive  that  it  might  occur  to  him  to  create 
material  substances,  without  a  wish  or  will  of  any  kind,  and 
completely  plastic  in  his  hands.  Bat  matter,  however  wrought 
into  beautiful  and  gorgeous  forms,  does  not  reflect  the  full  per- 
fections of  God.  Besides  material  substances,  the  fulness  of 
God's  love  would  prompt  him  to  create  spiritual  beings  with 
intelligence  and  free-will.  These  must,  from  their  very  nature, 
be  swayed  by  influences  totally  different  from  those  by  which 
God  regulates  the  material  universe.     It  is  one  of  the  most 


HEOW  LIGHT  ON  THE  CONDITION  OF  THE  WORLD.  67 

noble  and  godlike  qualities  of  spiritual  intelligences,  that  they 
are  enabled  and  required  to  act  for  themselves.  Were  the 
freedom  of  their  will  interfered  with,  they  would  cease  to  be 
what  they  are,  and  would  be  stripped  of  one  of  their  most  ex- 
alted and  distinguishing  features. 

To  such  creatures,  their  Creator  would  by  some  means  or 
other  give  a  law,  with  power  to  obey  it  if  they  so  chose,  but 
with  freedom  too  to  disobey  it.  Virtue  is  not  virtue,  properly 
speaking,  when  it  is  constrained.  Every  praiseworthy  deed  must 
be  free  and  spontaneous.  But  it  may  be  involved  in  the  very 
nature  of  a  state  of  freedom,  that  those  who  possess  it  are  liable 
to  abuse  if.  It  is  conceivable,  then,  that  wherever  there  are 
responsible  beings,  there  may  also,  on  the  part  of  some  or  many, 
be  a  disobedience  to  that  law  which  the  Creator  hath  prescribed 
as  the  rule  of  obedience.  A  condition  of  things  in  which  such 
disobedience  is  impossible,  may  presuppose  either  that  no  freedom 
of  will  has  been  given,  or  that  it  is  being  interfered  with.  It  is 
reasonable,  no  doubt,  to  suppose  that  this  disobedience  must  be 
something  of  rare  occurrence  in  the  dominions  of  God  ;  but  that 
which  is  possible  may  be  occurring  somewhere,  and  there  may 
be  some  individuals,  or  some  races,  who  have  fallen  away  from 
the  purity  in  which  they  were  created. 

There  is  nothing  unreasonable,  then,  in  the  idea  that  there 
may  be  a  fallen  world  somewhere.  The  pride  of  the  human 
heart  may  rebel  against  the  very  thought,  that  the  race  to  which 
we  belong  can  be  thus  degenerate.  But  it  is  surely  not  impos- 
sible that  there  may  be  a  world  which  has  thus  lapsed  into  sin  ; 
and  it  is  our  duty  to  join  the  light  which  observation,  reason, 
and  man's  moral  nature  furnish,  in  order  to  determine  whether 
we  may  not  be  living  in  such  a  state  of  things. 

A  priori,  it  may  seem  as  if  the  chances  of  our  being  in  a  spot- 
less world  were  much  greater  than  of  our  being  in  a  fallen  world  ; 
but  we  have  to  do  here,  not  with  chances,  but  with  realities — 
not  with  conjectural  probabilities,  but  with  facts.  Judging  a 
priori,  the  actual  world  is  not  such  as  we  should  suppose  it 
likely  that  God  would  fashion.  We  must  set  aside  our  self- 
formed  conceptions  of  what  is  probable,  and  taking  things  as 
they  are,  inquire  what  view  the  facts  before  our  eyes,  and  re- 
vealed to  our  consciousness,  give  of  this  world  and  of  its  rela- 
tion to  its  Governor. 


68  OTHER  GENERAL  PHENOMENA  FITTED  TO 

There  are  indications  in  the  world,  as  it  appears  to  us,  of  foui 
great  general  truths. 

First,  There  are  indications  of  the  beautiful,  the  bene- 
ficent, and  the  good.  These  features  strike  the  senses,  impress 
the  fancy,  and  move  the  soul  of  all.  The  painter  delights  to 
exhibit  them  to  the  eye,  and  the  poet  to  the  mind  ;  the  man  of 
taste  expatiates  in  their  grandeur  and  beauty  ;  while  the  religious 
man  feels  as  if  they  helped  him  upward  to  the  contemplation  of 
the  perfections  of  God. 

Secondly,  There  are  indications  of  the  lovely  and  the 
good  being  marred  and  defaced.  There  is  disorder  in  the 
very  midst  of  order ;  there  is  sin  in  the  very  heart  which  ap- 
proves of  excellence.  The  useful  becomes  destructive,  and  the 
good  has  become  evil.  We  feel  in  treading  the  ground,  as  if 
we  were  walking  over  the  withering  leaves  of  a  life  which  had 
decayed.  We  cannot  but  admire  the  magnificence  which  every- 
where meets  our  eye ;  yet  it  is  with  an  associated  feeling  of 
melancholy,  like  that  which  the  traveller  experiences  when  he 
surveys  Baalbec  or  Palmyra,  Luxor  and  Carnac.  The  wise  and 
the  good  have  ever  been  inclined  to  look  upon  this  world  as  but 
the  ruin  of  its  former  greatness.  Man,  and  the  world  in  which 
he  dwells,  retain  many  traces  of  their  former  greatness.  The 
ruins  of  a  palace  differ  from  the  ruins  of  a  hut.  In  the  former,  the 
work  of  desolation  may  be  more  complete  than  in  the  latter ; 
but  we  find  here  and  there  in  the  one  what  we  cannot  find  in 
the  other — a  column  or  statue  of  surpassing  beauty,  indicating 
what  the  building  was  when  it  came  forth  from  the  hands  of 
its  maker.  Not  only  so,  but  a  palace  in  ruins  is  a  grander 
object  than  a  hut  when  entire.  "  The  stately  ruins  are  visible 
to  every  eye  that  bear  in  their  front  (yet  extant)  this  doleful 
inscription — Here  God  once  dwelt.  Enough  appears  of  the 
admirable  frame  and  structure  of  the  soul  of  man  to  show  that 
the  Divine  presence  did  once  dwell  in  it,  more  than  enough  of 
vicious  deformity  to  proclaim  he  is  now  retired  and  gone." 
"  Look  upon  the  fragments  of  that  curious  sculpture  which  once 
adorned  the  palace  of  that  Great  King — the  relics  of  common 
notions — the  lively  prints  of  some  undefaced  truth — the  fair 
ideas  of  things — the  yet  legible  precepts  that  relate  to  practice. 
Behold  with  what  accuracy  the  broken  pieces  show  these  to  have 
been  engraven  by  the  finger  of  God  ;  and  how  they  be  torn  and 


THROW  LIGHT  ON  THE  CONDITION  OF  THE  WORLD.  69 

scattered,  one  in  this  dark  corner,  and  another  in  that,  buried 
in  heaps  of  dust  and  rubbish."* 

But  these  two  truths  do  not  constitute  the  whole  truth  ;  and 
there  are  persons  who,  having  discovered  this,  rashly  conclude 
that  the  one  or  other  is  not  a  truth  at  all.  There  is  a  third 
truth  to  be  taken  into  account  by  those  who  would  give  a 
rational  explanation  of  existing  circumstances.  Besides  the 
traces  of  original  beauty  and  subsequent  degradation,  there  are 
proofs  of  reconstruction  or  reorganization.  No  one  can 
understand  the  condition  of  the  world  in  which  he  lives,  except 
by  looking  to  all  these  characteristics.  Those  who  have  con- 
fined their  view  to  one  or  two  of  them,  have  found  themselves 
in  the  heart  of  inexplicable  enigmas.  Persons  who  look  only 
to  the  grandeur  of  the  universe,  are  confounded  every  day  with 
occurrences  strangely  at  variance  with  the  views  which  they 
entertain  of  the  perfection  of  the  world.  Those  who  regard  this 
earth  as  utterly  cursed,  without  considering  its  original  perfec- 
tion, are  obliged,  in  holding  their  opinions,  to  shut  their  eyes 
to  the  loveliness  which  is  everywhere  visible,  if  they  will  but 
behold  it.  Nor  have  those  who  represent  this  world  as  a  temple 
in  ruins,  reached  the  whole  truth.  In  a  ruin,  everything  is 
abandoned  and  desolate.  The  parts  of  the  fabric  yet  entire, 
and  the  heaps  of  rubbish,  are  alike  tenantless  and  useless. 
The  whole  scene  is  waste,  and,  through  neglect,  is  becoming 
more  and  more  horrific.  But  our  earth  is  not  thus  deserted. 
Care  the  most  watchful  is  exercised  over  it,  and  over  every  the 
most  minute  fragment  of  it.  We  discover  the  lamentable  results 
of  a  mighty  conflict,  but  no  signs  of  neglect  or  abandonment. 
In  a  ruin,  everything  is  misplaced  ;  and,  except  when  accident 
has  so  determined  in  some  of  its  freaks,  the  contiguous  objects 
do  not  fit  into  or  aid  each  other.  But  in  this  world  we  discover 
everywhere  the  nicest  adaptation  of  part  to  part,  and  power  to 
power.  Amidst  seeming  confusion,  there  is  a  grand  pervading 
unity  of  design.  For  the  purposes  contemplated,  nothing  is 
wanting,  while  there  is  nothing  superfluous.  Chateaubriand 
developed  a  greater  truth  than  he  was  at  all  aware  of,  when  he 
described  this  world  as  a  "  temple  fallen,  and  rebuilt  with  its 
own  ruins."^ 

"  We  are  not  to  look  upon  this  world  as  a  perfect  world," 
*  Howe's  Living  Temple.  f  Genie  du  Cnristianisme. 


70  OTHER  GENERAL  PHENOMENA  FITTED  TO 

says  Butler,  expressing  the  view  of  every  sober  thinker.  But 
the  reflecting  mind  follows  up  this  admission  by  the  inquiry, 
Why  is  it  not  perfect  ?  Care  must  be  taken,  lest  the  acknow- 
ledgment that  the  world  is  not  perfect  land  us  in  the  conclusion 
that  God  is  not  perfect.*  The  one  element  of  imperfection  in 
this  world  is  the  character  of  man.  We  have  already  referred 
to  the  grounds  on  which  we  can  vindicate  (while  we  do  not 
profess  to  explain)  the  existence  of  sin,  under  the  government 
of  a  God  who  rules  his  responsible  creatures  by  moral  influences 
which  do  not  interfere  with  the  freedom  of  the  will.  But  what- 
ever may  be  the  solution  of  the  difficulty  which  proceeds  from 
the  existence  of  moral  evil,  we  hold  it  to  be  of  great  moment  to 
establish  the  doctrine  that  this  world  is  perfect  considered  in 
reference  to  those  who  dwell  in  it.  There  may  be  a  difference 
of  opinion  as  to  whether  a  satisfactory  explanation  can  be  given 
of  the  origin  of  evil,  or  whether  there  can  be  any  other  than  the 
one  already  hinted  at ;  but  moral  evil  being  supposed  to  exist, 
it  is  of  the  last  importance  to  show  that  the  other  apparent  evils 
flow  from  it, — "  After  it,  the  permission  of  sin,"  says  Leibnitz, 
"  is  justified,  the  other  evil  in  its  train  presents  no  difficulty, 
and  we  are  now  entitled  to  resort  to  the  evil  of  sin  to  give  a 
reason  for  the  evil  of  pain."f  Moral  evil  being  presupposed,  it 
may  now  be  shown  that  physical  evil  in  no  way  reflects  on  the 
character  of  God.  There  are  perverted  minds  who  may  not 
think  the  government  of  God  perfect  because  it  ordains  pain 
and  sorrow,  and  provides  restraints  and  penalties ;  but  if  they 
follow  out  their  principles,  they  must  conclude  that  God  is  not 
perfect.  With  the  proofs  so  abundant  of  the  perfection  of  God, 
in  respect  of  all  other  departments  of  his  works,  it  becomes  us 
to  inquire  whether  his  government  be  not  perfect  in  respect  also 
of  the  appointment  of  suffering  and  punishment. 

In  the  simple  and  single  parts  of  God's  works,  whether  in  the 
mineral  or  animal  or  vegetable  kingdoms,  we  never  discover  a 
mean  without  an  end.  There  is  a  use,  for  instance,  for  every 
nerve  and  muscle,  every  bone  and  joint,  of  the  animal  frame. 
Phrysiologists  all  proceed  on  the  principle  that  there  is  nothing 
unnecessary  in  the  organization  of  plants  and  animals;  and  the 
careful  investigation  of  parts  which  seemed  useless  led  Cuvier 

*  See  Hume's  Dialogues  on  Natural  Religion,  where  this  conclusion  is  drawn. 
•f  Essays  on  the  Goodness  of  God,  p.  iii.  §  265. 


THROW  LIGHT  ON  THE  CONDITION  OF  THE  WORLD.  71 

and  others  to  some  of  their  grandest  discoveries.  It  is  upon 
this  principle  that  the  geologist  and  comparative  anatomist 
proceed,  in  the  inferences  which  they  draw  from  the  animal 
remains  found  among  the  rocks.  That  bone,  they  conclude, 
must  have  served  a  purpose,  and  belonged  to  a  living  creature  ; 
and  from  the  examination  of  it,  they  arrive  at  a  knowledge  of 
the  shape,  size,  food,  and  habits  of  an  animal  which  may  have 
been  extinct  for  myriads  of  ages.  Proceeding  on  this  principle, 
they  can  clothe  the  bones  with  sinews  and  flesh,  and  furnish  a 
painting  in  which  the  living  animals  are  seen  browsing  among 
the  reeds  and  ferns  and  trees  of  an  ancient  world. 

We  believe  that  there  is  as  little  of  useless  waste  in  the  more 
complicated  dealings  of  God's  providence  as  in  the  construction  of 
plants  and  animals.  The  most  ordinary  observer  may  discover 
that  all  the  events  of  God's  providence  are  linked  or  dovetailed 
together.  The  most  rapid  concentrations  of  the  various  parts  of 
an  army  towards  a  point  by  the  pre-arrangement  of  the  general, 
the  most  skilful  adjustment  of  wheel  and  cylinder  in  an  ingenious 
machine,  do  not  so  impress  us  with  all-pervading  purpose  and 
plan,  as  the  combinations  and  concatenations  of  events  in  the 
providence  of  God.  The  whole  analogy  of  nature,  then,  prevents 
us  from  imagining  that  disease  and  sorrow,  with  the  manifest 
restraints  and  punishment*  laid  upon  man,  are  incidental  or 
accidental.  It  would  indeed  be  strange,  while  everything  else 
subserved  a  purpose,  to  find  such  painful  dispensations  permitted 
without  an  end  to  accomplish  by  them. 

But  to  return  from  this  seeming  digression,  we  find  every- 
where in  the  world  traces  of  original  grandeur  and  subsequent 
ruin,  and  we  find  both  united  in  a  compact,  and  in  some  respects 
harmonious,  whole.  Our  world  in  this  respect  resembles  those 
conglomerate  rocks  which  are,  indeed,  the  detritus  of  an  earlier 
formation,  and  seem  now  to  be  a  curious  jumble,  but  which,  not- 
withstanding, through  the  binding  together  of  the  parts,  are 
among  the  hardest  andmostconsistent  of  all  rocks  in  their  texture. 

We  see  before  us  now,  not  a  ruin,  but  a  compact  fabric — 

"  A  ruin,  yet  what  a  ruin  ! — from  its  mass 
Walls,  palaces,  half  cities  have  been  reared." 

The  impression  left  upon  our  mind  is  not  so  much  like  that 
produced  by  Thebes,  or  the  cities  of  the  desert,  as  by  modern 
Jerusalem,  still  a  city,  but  in  singular  contrast  with  its  former 


72  OTHER  GENERAL  PHENOMENA  FITTED  TO 

greatness.  There  are  evidences  that  the  building  is  far  inferior 
to  the  original  one ;  and  here  and  there  you  see  a  stone  of  the 
first  fabric,  in  some  respects  sadly  out  of  place,  yet  admirably 
fitted  to  uphold  the  existing  structure.  That  fabric  is  not  a  per- 
fect one,  such  as  it  seems  once  to  have  been,  but  it  is  in  every 
respect  suited  to  the  imperfect  individuals  who  dwell  in  it.  It 
resembles  those  palaces  which  have  been  turned  into  hospitals, 
retaining  marks  of  their  having  been  originally  designed  for  a  no- 
bler purpose,  and  causing  us  to  sigh  over  the  degradation  to  which 
they  have  been  subjected,  but  accommodated,  notwithstanding, 
by  a  wonderful  dexterity,  to  the  good  end  which  they  now  serve. 

Such  are  the  intimations  of  nature ;  but  nature  goes  little 
farther,  it  must  be  confessed,  than  to  raise  salutary  fears  and  stir 
up  inquiry.  It  prompts  us  to  put  questions  which  it  does  not 
deign  to  answer.  It  calls  up  fears  which  it  cannot  allay.  It  ever 
conducts  to  a  yawning  gulf  covered  with  clouds.  There  may  be 
a  country  beyond,  but  it  does  not  show  it.  There  may  be  a 
passage  to  that  land,  but  it  does  not  disclose  it.  Still  there  are 
times  when  the  mists  seem  to  open,  and  show  a  better  destiny  to 
the  human  family,  and  a  passage  to  it.  There  are  times  when, 
like  Columbus  as  he  approached  the  coasts  of  the  new  world,  we 
think  we  see  in  the  night  a  light  from  the  country  in  whose  exist- 
ence we  are  inclined  to  believe.   But  this  leads  us  to  observe  that — 

Fourthly,  There  are  indications  of  intended  renovation. 
For  why  has  this  world,  so  manifestly  under  the  displeasure  of 
God,  been  preserved  ?  As  a  prison-house,  our  fears  would  sug- 
gest. But  hope,  equally  natural  with  fear  to  the  human  breast, 
immediately  throws  out  the  idea  that  it  may  be  as  a  school  of 
discipline  and  probation.  It  certainly  does  not  appear  to  be  ex- 
clusively a  school  for  training  to  virtue — for  there  are  signal 
judgments  inflicted  on  the  wicked,  not  to  train  them,  but,  so  far 
as  this  world  is  concerned,  to  put  an  end  to  discipline.  But  still 
less  does  it  seem  to  be  altogether  a  prison,  and  fitted  merely  for 
punishment — for  there  are  innumerable  means  of  improvement 
and  incentives  to  excellence.  May  it  not  be,  that  it  is  a  place  of 
probation  preparatory  to  a  final  judgment  and  consummation  ? 

The  very  preservation  of  this  world  in  its  present  state  seems 
to  show  that  God  does  not  intend  it  merely  as  a  place  of  punish- 
ment. Among  the  withered  leaves  on  which  we  tread  there  are 
to  be  found  the  seeds  of  a  coming  renovation,  and  these  leaves 


THROW  LIGHT  ON  THE  CONDITION  OF  THE  WORLD.  73 

are  preserved  for  a  time  that  the  seeds  may  germinate  in  the 
midst  of  them.  A  soil  is  being  pulverized  for  the  support  of  a 
new  and  a  better  life.  In  this  world  there  are  evidences  of  God's 
hatred  of  evil ;  there  are  also  proofs  of  his  disposition  to  mercy 
and  grace.  The  human  mind  has  ever  been  prone  to  fancy  that 
this  world  is  yet  to  be  the  theatre  of  great  events,  in  which  all 
the  perfections  of  God's  character  are  to  be  displayed.  Tradition 
has  delighted  to  converse,  and  poetry  to  sing,  of  a  golden  age 
as  the  commencing  one  in  our  world's  history  ;  and  both  have 
fondly  looked  forward  to  a  time  when  all  things  are  to  be  re- 
stored to  their  primal  purity.  But  tradition  retains  only  such 
portion  of  the  truth  as  recommends  itself  to  the  principles  of  the 
human  heart,  and  true  poetry  ever  sings  in  accordance  with  the 
native  feelings ;  and  surely  philosophy  should  not  pour  contempt 
on  those  high  expectations  which  form  the  noblest  aspirations  of 
human  nature,  and  which  we  may  suppose  God  would  not  have 
allowed  to  remain,  if  there  is  to  be  no  means  of  gratifying  them. 

God  seems  to  have  departed  from  our  world :  but  as  if  to 
prove  his  remaining  interest  in  it,  he  hath  left  a  train  of  light 
behind.  We  do  feel  as  if  there  were  light  lingering  upon  our 
world,  like  that  which  rests  upon  the  earth  in  the  darkest  hour 
of  a  summer's  night,  left  by  a  sun  which  has  set,  but  which  may 
yet  appear,  or  sent  before  by  a  sun  soon  to  arise.  Even  when 
our  fears  do  most  harass  us,  we  discover  tokens  for  good.  We 
see,  it  is  true,  no  sun  as  yet  appearing  above  the  horizon  ;  but 
on  the  earth  itself,  on  some  of  its  higher  elevations,  on  some  of 
its  more  prominent  peaks  rising  up  from  among  the  darkest 
shadows,  or  on  some  of  the  clouds  which  overhang  it,  we  discover 
a  kindling  light,  which  seems  to  show  that  there  is  a  glorious 
luminary  yet  to  rise,  and  that  our  earth  is  to  be  visited  by  a 
brighter  and  more  glorious  era. 

Some  persons  may  be  inclined  to  argue,  that  we  could  never 
have  discovered  these  truths  from  nature  alone  without  the  aid  of 
revelation.  With  such  parties  we  are  not  inclined  to  enter  into 
a  contest.  Provided  their  statements  be  sufficiently  guarded,  we 
may  probably  agree  with  them,  and  may  at  the  same  time,  and 
with  perfect  consistency,  maintain,  that  though  there  is  a  difficulty 
in  interpreting  nature  these  are  the  very  truths  which  nature 
teaches.  Let  it  be  granted  that  the  writing  inscribed  on  the 
works  of  God  is  not  very  clear,  still  the  letters  are  there,  and  start 


/4  OTHER  GENERAL  PHENOMENA,  ETC. 

into  legibility  upon  being  placed  under  the  power  of  divine  truth. 
It  required  the  genius  of  Copernicus  and  Newton  to  discover 
the  true  theory  of  the  heavens;  but  when  that  theory  is  known,  it 
needs  no  such  sagacity  to  observe  that  it  is  confirmed  by  every 
phenomenon  before  our  eyes.  It  may  require,  in  like  manner, 
a  supernatural  light  to  give  the  true  explanation  of  the  mysteries 
of  nature  ;  but  now,  with  that  explanation  before  us,  we  see  that 
nature  has  many  of  its  most  difficult  knots  unravelled  by  it. 

Not  only  so,  but  the  very  fact  that  the  Scriptures  furnish  such 
an  explanation  of  nature,  may  be  regarded  as  a  proof  of  their 
heavenly  origin.  The  writings  on  the  tombs  and  temples  ot 
ancient  Egypt  long  baffled  the  skill  of  the  most  distinguished 
scholars.  It  was  the  Rosetta  stone,  with  its  triple  inscriptions,  one 
of  them  being  Greek  and  a  translation  of  the  two  hieroglyphical 
ones,  which  first  furnished,  or  rather  suggested,  the  discovery 
of  the  key.  The  key  thus  suggested  by  the  Greek  translation 
is  shown  to  be  a  true  one,  by  the  number  of  hidden  meanings 
which  it  has  satisfactorily  opened.  Let  it  be  acknowledged,  it 
persons  insist  on  it,  that  the  inscriptions  on  the  works  of  God 
are  not  very  easily  deciphered  ;  still,  should  it  be  found  that  a 
professed  revelation  explains  them,  and  that  the  two  coincide, 
there  is  evidence  furnished  in  behalf  both  of  the  genuineness  of 
the  revelation,  and  the  correctness  of  the  interpretation  which 
has  been  put  upon  nature.  As  it  opens  chamber  after  chamber, 
we  become  convinced  that  we  have  at  last  found  the  true  key. 
"  A  person  discovering  the  proofs  of  the  Christian  religion  is  like 
an  heir  finding  the  title-deeds  of  his  estate.  Shall  he  condemn 
them  as  counterfeit,  or  cast  them  aside  without  examination  ?" 
"Who  can  do  otherwise  than  admire  and  embrace  a  religion 
which  contains  the  complete  knowledge  of  truths  which  we  still 
know  the  better  the  more  we  receive  ?"* 

We  are  as  yet,  however,  but  in  the  vestibule  of  the  temple  of 
nature  ;  and  some  may  regard  us  as  speculating  beyond  the  evi- 
dence within  our  range  of  vision.  All  we  ask  of  such  is,  that 
they  now  follow  us  into  the  temple  itself ;  and  we  must  be  pre- 
pared to  abandon  the  views  wdiich  have  suggested  themselves,  if 
they  are  not  confirmed  upon  the  most  minute  and  rigid  exami- 
nation of  the  physical  and  moral  governments  of  God. 

*  Pascal's  Thoughts. 


METHOD  OF  THE  DIVINE  GOVERNMENT. 


BOOK  SECOND. 

PARTICULAR  INQUIRY  INTO  THE  METHOD  OP  THE  DIYINE 
GOVERNMENT  IN  THE  PHYSICAL  WORLD. 

In  the  exploring  expedition  on  which  we  have  set  out,  we 
have,  first,  as  from  a  height,  taken  a  general  survey  of  the 
country  before  us,  as  the  traveller  will  do,  when  circumstances 
admit,  at  the  outset  of  his  journey.  We  are  now  to  descend  to 
a  detailed  examination  of  the  territory  whose  outline  we  have 
been  surveying.  In  the  first  instance,  we  are  to  enter  into  the 
heart  of  the  physical  world  as  the  same  bears  relation  to  man, 
and  we  are  then  to  consider  the  character  of  man  as  under  the 
government  of  God.  As  a  suitable  conclusion,  we  may  gather 
the  results  together,  and  view  them  in  combination. 


CHAP.  I. — GENERAL  LAWS;   OR,  THE  PRINCIPLE  OF  ORDER. 

SECT.  I. — DIFFERENT  THINGS  DENOTED  BY  THE  PHRASE  "  LAWS  OF 
NATURE" — PROPERTIES  OF  MATTER,  CAUSES,  AND  GENERAL 
LAWS. 

The  most  ignorant  and  careless  observer  cannot  contemplate 
the  works  of  nature  without  discovering  many  indications  of  the 
existence  of  general  laws.  Science,  in  its  progress,  has  been 
widening  the  dominion  of  law,  and  has  detected  its  presence 
where  the  unlearned  saw  only  caprice,  and  where  the  piously 
disposed  were  accustomed  to  contemplate  the  Divine  power  acting 
independently  of  all  instrumental  causes.  It  is  now  acknowledged 
that  there  are  physical  laws  determining  every  "fitful  breeze, 


76  LAWS  OF  NATURE. 

and  every  forming  cloud,  and  every  falling  shower."  But  while 
there  is  a  universal  recognition  among  the  reflecting  community 
of  the  existence  of  general  laws,  there  is  about  as  universal  a 
confusion  of  idea  as  to  their  nature.  An  inquiry  into  this  topic 
may  help  to  clear  away  much  cloudiness  of  conception,  in  which 
not  a  few  errors  are  lurking. 

"  Without  going  into  any  subtilties,"  says  Sir  John  Herschel, 
"  I  may  be  allowed  to  suggest,  that  it  is  at  least  high  time  that 
philosophers,  both  physical  and  others,  should  come  to  some 
nearer  agreement  than  seems  to  prevail  as  to  the  meaning  they 
intend  to  convey  in  speaking  of  causes  and  causation.  On  the 
one  hand,  we  are  told  that  the  grand  object  of  physical  inquiry 
is  to  explain  the  nature  of  phenomena  by  referring  them  to  their 
causes ;  on  the  other,  that  the  inquiry  into  causes  is  altogether 
vain  and  futile,  and  that  science  has  no  concern  but  with  the 
discovery  of  laws.  Which  of  these  is  the  truth  ?  Or  are  both 
views  of  the  matter  true,  on  a  different  interpretation  of  the 
terms  ?  Whichever  view  we  may  take,  or  whichever  interpre- 
tation we  may  adopt,  there  is  one  thing  certain,  the  extreme 
inconvenience  of  such  a  state  of  language.  This  can  only  be 
reformed  by  a  careful  analysis  of  the  widest  of  all  human  gener- 
alizations, disentangling  from  one  another  the  innumerable  shades 
of  meaning  which  have  got  confounded  together  in  its  progress, 
and  establishing  among  them  a  rational  classification  and  no- 
menclature. Until  this  be  done,  we  cannot  be  sure,  that  by  the 
relation  of  cause  and  effect,  one  and  the  same  kind  of  relation 
is  understood."*  The  remark  of  this  distinguished  philosopher 
is  one  of  the  many  signs  of  the  times  which  indicate,  that  though 
scientific  men  are  commonly  disposed  to  turn  away  from  meta- 
physical philosophy,  they  will  soon  be  compelled  to  betake 
themselves  to  it ;  not  only  with  the  view  of  constructing  a  correct 
logic  of  physical  investigation,  but  for  the  very  purpose  of  ex- 
pelling the  errors  which  have  taken  refuge  in  the  region  of 
fundamental  principles — a  region,  no  doubt,  often  covered  with 
clouds,  but  where  all  the  streams  of  science  have  their  fountains. 

We  have  long  felt  the  desideratum  to  which  Sir  John  Herschel 

refers,  and  we  have  especially  felt  it  when  seeking  to  discuss  the 

questions  which  fall  to  be  answered  in  the  inquiry  into  the 

physical  government  of  God.     It  would  be  presumptuous  in  us 

*  President's  Address  to  British  Association,  1845. 


LAWS  OF  NATURE.  77 

to  profess  to  supply  what  so  many  have  felt  to  be  wanting,  and 
yet  have  not  been  able  to  furnish.  The  subjects  to  be  discussed, 
however,  require  us  to  make  the  attempt.  While  we  endeavour 
to  disentangle  a  web  which  appears  to  many  to  be  so  compli- 
cated, and  hope  thereby  to  throw  some  light  on  the  connexion 
of  God  with  his  works,  we  are  at  the  same  time  convinced  that 
many  of  the  conclusions  to  be  drawn,  in  the  subsequent  parts  ol 
this  book,  are  to  a  great  extent  independent  of  any  particular 
theory  which  may  be  formed  or  preferred  in  regard  to  the  precise 
nature  of  general  laws,  or  the  relation  between  cause  and  effect. 

In  reflecting,  with  the  view  of  determining  its  nature,  upon  the 
Material  world — and  we  wish  it  to  be  remarked  that  in  this  book 
we  treat  of  nothing  but  the  Material  world — we  are  led  at  the 
very  first  glance  to  see  that  it  is  composed  of  a  number  of  sub- 
stances, simple  and  compound,  possessing  properties.  We  do  not 
require  to  enter  upon  the  metaphysics  of  substance  and  quality  ; 
we  are  not  to  defend,  nor  are  we  to  impugn,  either  the  popular 
view  on  the  one  hand,  or  the  various  philosophic  theories  on  the 
other.  We  assume,  what  all  must  assume — except  absolute  scep- 
tics, who  are  beneath,  or  transcendental  idealists,  who  are  above 
the  reach  of  evidence — that  there  are  material  substances  pos- 
sessing properties.  Nor  are  we  in  this  treatise  to  speak  of  those 
properties  of  matter  by  which  it  affects  the  mind  through  the 
nervous  system  and  brain.  These  are  important  objects  of  in- 
quiry, but  they  do  not  fall  to  be  prosecuted  in  this  place,  in 
which  we  confine  ourselves  to  a  topic  which  will  be  found  to  be 
sufficiently  wide — the  mode  of  action  of  the  Physical  world. 

In  contemplating  matter  with  the  view  of  discovering  its  qua- 
lities, we  cannot  avoid  perceiving  that,  first  of  all,  it  possesses  the 
property  of  extension,  or  rather  that  of  occupying  space.  This 
property  was  regarded  as  its  essential  quality  by  Descartes :  and 
it  certainly  does  seem  to  us  to  be  an  essential  constituent  of  our 
cognition  of  matter,  and  implied  in  all  its  actual  operations* 

*  See  Sir  William  Hamilton's  analysis  of  this  quality,  and  also  remarks  on  the 
dynamical  theory  of  matter  in  Appendix  II.  On  the  Qualities  of  Matter. 
Modern  physical  investigation  has  entirely  set  aside  the  idea,  still  lingering 
among  metaphysicians,  that  extension  is  the  only  essential  quality  of  matter : 
dynamical  energy  is  also  essential.  On  the  other  hand,  the  dynamical  theory  of 
matter  commonly  overlooks  extension,  and  errs  besides  in  regarding  the  powers 
of  matter  as  mere  forces,  (a  word  of  limited  signification,)  whereas  they  are  pro- 
perties  with  a  vast  variety  of  kinds  of  action. 


78  LAWS  OF  NATURE. 

Conjoined  with  this  fundamental  one,  we  find  in  all  bodies  an 
indefinite  number  of  other  properties,  such  as  attraction  and  re- 
pulsion, chemical  affinity  and  degrees  of  cohesion,  producing  the 
gaseous,  the  liquid,  and  solid  states,  with  certain  powers  in  refer- 
ence to  light,  heat,  and  electricity.  By  these  properties,  bodies 
are  capable  of  producing  changes  on  each  other.  This  produc- 
tion of  changes  is  not  variable  or  capricious,  but  follows  certain 
fixed  laws.  Bodies,  simple  and  compound,  separate  and  in  union, 
in  mechanical  and  chemical  combination,  change  and  are  changed 
according  to  certain  rules.  These  are  the  properties  of  the  sub- 
stance, and  all  bodies  have  their  definite  and  measurable  pro- 
perties, that  is,  a  determinate  method  of  producing  changes  on 
each  other.  Such  is  the  very  constitution  of  material  substances, 
and  such  the  very  constitution  of  the  world  as  consisting  of  these 
substances.  "Nothing,"  says  Bacon,  "exists  in  nature  except 
individual  bodies,  producing  pure  individual  acts,  according  to 
the  law  which  governs  them."* 

In  looking  more  narrowly  into  the  nature  of  these  properties, 
we  find  that  no  given  body  acts  upon  itself.  Bodies,  when  they 
act,  act  upon  each  other.  Putrefaction  and  similar  processes  may 
seem  an  exception,  but  they  are  so  only  in  appearance,  for  in  all 
such  cases,  the  separate  elements  of  which  the  body  is  composed 
act  on  one  another.  Could  we  take  any  one  body,  or  particle  of 
a  body,  and  separate  it  from  the  action  of  all  other  bodies,  it 
would  continue  in  the  state  in  which  we  have  put  it  for  ever.  In 
order  to  a  change  in  that  body,  there  must  be  another  body 
operating  upon  it.  It  thus  appears  that  the  powers  which  one 
body  has  of  changing  another,  or  of  being  itself  changed,  con- 
stitute the  properties  of  the  body,  and  that  all  the  properties  of 
any  given  body  have  a  reference  to  some  other  body  or  bodies, 
and  to  the  production  of  change  upon  that  body  or  these  bodies. 
The  only  exceptions  that  we  can  think  of  are  to  be  found  in  those 
properties  of  matter  by  which  it  affects  mind,  and  the  quality  of  ex- 
tension, which  has  a  reference  to  space  rather  than  to  other  matter. 

In  order  to  action,  to  change,  there  must  therefore  be  more 
than  one  body.  There  is  not,  so  far  as  we  can  see,  a  self-acting 
material  substance  in  nature.  It  is  the  first  law  of  motion — that 
is,  of  all  the  mechanical  sciences — that  a  body  will  continue  in 
the  state  in  which  it  has  been  put,  whether  of  motion  or  rest,  for 

*  Nov.  Org.,  Lib.  ii.  Aph.  ii. 


LAWS  OF  NATURE.  79 

ever,  unless  operated  upon  ah  extra.  Matter  is  equally  passive 
in  regard  to  chemical  action.  Nay,  there  is  required  in  order  to 
action,  to  change,  not  only  a  plurality  of  bodies,  but  a  relation 
between  the  properties  of  these  bodies.  Oxygen  and  hydrogen, 
for  instance,  unite  because  they  possess  the  quality  of  a  mutual 
affinity,  and  they  will  not  combine  except  in  certain  proportions, 
being  according  to  the  law  of  their  affinity.  All  action  or  change 
thus  originates  in  the  conjunct  operation  of  two  or  more  bodies, 
and  implies  a  relation  between  their  properties  so  as  to  admit  of 
their  mutual  action.  A  material  substance  existing  alone  in  the 
universe  could  not  produce  any  effects.  Give  us  two  material 
substances,  and  effects  may  follow.  Give  us  these  substances  in 
a  relation  suited  to  their  properties,  and  effects  will  follow. 
All  changes,  all  effects,  do  thus  proceed  from  the  properties  of 
two  or  more  bodies,  these  bodies  having  a  relation  to  each  other 
which  enables  their  properties  to  act. 

When  it  is  said  that  matter  is  passive  and  dependent,  every 
one  feels  that  there  is  a  truth  announced  which  at  once  com- 
mends itself  to  the  judgment.  On  the  other  hand,  Leibnitz  and 
a  class  of  speculators  increasing  in  the  present  day,  endeavour  to 
demonstrate  that  matter  is  active.  May  not  both  views  contain 
partial  truth  ?  We  believe  the  whole  truth  to  lie  in  the  double 
doctrine,  that  matter  has  inherent  active  properties,  but  that 
these  properties  are  of  such  a  kind  that  they  cannot  act  unless 
there  is  a  proper  relation  adjusted  for  them.  Each  separate 
substance,  viewed  per  se,  is  inert,  and  will  continue  in  the  state 
in  which  it  happens  to  be  till  operated  upon  ab  extra.  In  order 
to  action,  there  must  therefore  be  two  or  more  bodies,  having 
relation  to  each  other  in  respect  of  their  properties.  In  order  to 
beneficial  action,  there  must  be  a  skilfully  arranged,  and  we  be- 
lieve divinely  appointed,  relation  of  bodies  to  one  another.  In 
respect  of  its  properties,  matter  is  active,  it  has  a  virtus,  (this  is 
the  word  which  Leibnitz*  uses  as  explanatory  of  his  meaning,) 
and  we  believe  that  it  would  be  as  irreligious  as  it  is  unphilo- 
sophical  to  deny  this  its  inherent  power.  "In  that  great  sys- 
tem "  savs  Brown,  "  which  we  call  the  universe,  all  things  are 
what  they  are  in  consequence  of  God's  primary  will ;  but  if  they 
were  wholly  incapable  of  affecting  anything,  they  would  virtually 

^  *  See  Lettre  iv.,  CEuvres,  par  M.  A.  Jacques,  Prem.  Ser.     There  are  curious 
discussions  in  the  whole  of  the  lesser  works  of  Leibnitz. 


80  LAWS  OF  NATURE.       . 

themselves  be  as  nothing."*  But  then,  in  order  to  the  exercise  of 
this  their  capacity,  there  is  need  of  an  adjustment ;  and  in  order 
to  its  beneficial  exercise,  there  is  required  a  beneficial  arrange- 
ment, made,  we  believe,  by  the  same  Being  who  imparted  to 
them  the  capacity  itself. 

It  follows  that  all  causes,  so  far  as  they  are  material,  must  be 
complex.  An  effect  cannot  be  the  result  of  a  single  substance  or 
a  single  property,  but  of  two  or  more  substances  with  their  pro- 
perties, and  these  in  a  relation  to  each  other  admitting  of  their 
mutual  action.  It  follows,  that  in  all  inquiry  into  causes,  we 
should  seek  for  the  properties  of  two  bodies  at  the  least,  and 
a  condition  or  conditions  enabling  them  to  act.  We  say  in  a 
loose  way  that  the  beams  of  the  sun  are  the  cause  of  the  colour- 
ing of  the  leaves  of  plants ;  but  the  true  cause  is  a  complex 
one,  embracing  not  only  the  beams  with  their  properties,  but  the 
chlorophyll  and  juices  of  the  leaves  with  their  properties.  The 
sunbeams  alone  would  not  produce  the  effects — there  must  be 
the  concurrence  of  the  chlorophyll,  (when  the  leaf  is  green  ;)  and 
it  is  when  the  two  meet  that  the  leaves  are  made  to  take  the 
lively  hue  of  summer,  this  hue  varying  with  the  variation  of  its 
concurrent  causes,  (concause,)  being  different  in  plants  under  the 
shade  from  what  it  is  in  plants  in  the  sunshine,  and  differing, 
by  reason  of  the  difference  of  composition,  in  every  different 
species  of  plant.  We  are  accustomed  to  speak  of  a  frosty  night 
as  having  nipped  the  plant  found  dead  in  our  garden  ;  but  surely 
the  vital  properties  of  the  plant  are  as  essential  agents  as  the 
frost  in  the  series  of  effects  produced.  A  ball  in  motion  strikes 
a  ball  at  rest  and  sets  it  in  motion ;  the  cause  here  is  to  be 
sought,  not  merely  in  the  first  ball — the  ball  in  motion,  but 
likewise  in  the  property  or  susceptibility  of  the  second  ball — the 
ball  at  rest ;  and  as  the  cause  is  complex,  so  the  effect  is  com- 
plex also,  and  comprises  not  merely  the  ball  once  at  rest  but 
now  in  motion,  but  the  ball  in  motion  now  slackened  or  stayed 
in  its  movement.  We  commonly  say,  and  the  language  is  correct 
enough  for  common  use,  that  air  acting  on  iron  produces  rust ; 
but  when  we  spread  out  the  whole  phenomenon,  we  find  that  the 
cause,  properly  speaking,  lies  in  the  air  and  iron  in  a  particular 
relation,  and  that  the  effect  also  embraces  both  the  air  and  the 
iron — the  air  having  had  a  portion  of  its  oxygen,  and  the  iron  a 
*  Brown  on  Cause  and  Effect,  P.  i.  §  5,  p.  105,  3d  ed. 


LAWS  OF  NATURE.  81 

portion  of  its  substance,  abstracted,  and  the  rust  produced  being 
a  compound  of  the  iron  and  oxygen. 

In  the  ordinary  style  of  speaking  and  writing,  we  fix  on  one 
of  the  concurring  precedents  as  the  cause,  and  we  call  the  other 
the  circumstances,  and  we  speak  of  the  same  cause  in  the  same 
circumstances  producing  the  same  effects.  In  fixing  on  one  of  the 
precedents  as  the  cause,  we  commonly  single  out  the  one  which 
is  most  prominent,  or  to  which  we  wish  to  give  the  greatest 
prominence.  But  when  we  speak  of  the  real  cause,  the  uncon- 
ditional cause,  the  cause  which  will  for  ever  be  followed  by  the 
effects,  we  must  embrace  not  onlv  what  is  vulgarly  called  the 
cause,  but  also  the  circumstances  or  conditions — as  in  the  above 
illustrations — not  only  the  sunbeams,  but  the  juices  also ;  not 
only  the  frost,  but  the  nature  of  the  plant ;  not  only  the  ball  in 
motion,  but  the  ball  at  rest ;  not  only  the  air,  but  the  iron.  It 
is  only  when  we  do  this,  and  make  the  maxim  take  this  form — 
that  the  same  material  substances,  bearing  the  same  relation  in 
respect  of  their  properties,  always  produce  the  same  effects — 
that  it  becomes  philosophically  correct.*  Even  for  practical 
purposes,  it  is  often  desirable  that  it  should  assume  this  form, 
for  as  long  as  we  merely  talk  of  the  cause  being  followed  by  the 
same  effect  in  similar  circumstances,  we  are  apt  to  lose  ourselves 
in  determining  what  constitutes  the  similar  circumstances,  f 

*  These  views  had  occurred  to  the  author  before  he  read  Mr.  John  S.  Mill's 
very  mastefly  work  on  Logic.  Mr.  Mill  has  seen  the  defect  in  the  common  state- 
ments, but  has  not,  in  consequence  of  not  giving  the  properties  of  bodies  their 
proper  place,  discovered  the  thorough  rectification.  "The  statement  of  the  cause 
is  incomplete,  unless  in  some  shape  or  other  we  introduce  all  the  conditions.  A 
man  takes  mercury,  goes  out  of  doors,  and  catches  cold.  We  say,  perhaps,  that 
the  cause  of  his  taking  cold  was  exposure  to  the  air.  It  is  clear,  however,  that 
his  having  taken  mercury  may  have  been  a  necessary  condition  of  his  catching 
cold;  and  though  it  might  consist  with  usage  to  say  that  the  cause  of  his  attack 
was  exposure  to  the  air,  to  be  accurate  we  ought  to  say,  that  the  cause  was  expo- 
sure to  air  while  under  the  effect  of  mercury.  (Book  III.  chap.  v.  \  3,  ed.  3d.) 
The  true  cause  here  was  the  body  in  a  particular  state — that  is,  under  mercury — 
and  the  air  in  a  particular  state;  and  the  co-existence  of  the  two  is  necessary  to 
the  production  of  the  effect.  Mr.  Mill  has  seen  that  the  unconditional  cause  is 
often  (it  is  always)  dual  or  plural,  but  he  has  not  noticed  that  the  effect  must  be 
the  same.  The  true  cause  consists  of  two  or  more  bodies  in  a  particular  state; 
the  true  effect  consists  of  the  same  bodies  in  a  different  state.  Hence  Mr.  Mill's 
error,  (Book  III.  chap.  x.  §  1,)  in  supposing  that  the  same  effect  can  be  pro- 
duced by  several  causes.     A  part  of  the  effect  may,  but  not  the  whole. 

t  See  farther  discussion  on  the  relation  between  cause  and  effect,  in  Appen- 
dix III. 


82  LAWS  OF  NATURE. 

We  are  now  in  a  position  to  understand  what  is  meant  by  the 
laws  of  nature.  We  may  mean  three  different  things,  which 
ought  to  be  carefully  distinguished. 

First,  The  properties  of  bodies,  or  their  power  of  producing 
changes  on  each  other.  As  examples,  we  may  give  the  power 
which  all  matter  has  to  attract  other  matter — which  oxygen 
has  to  combine  chemically  with  carbon  in  certain  proportions — ■ 
which  an  alkali  has  to  destroy  the  sourness  of  an  acid — which  an 
acid  has  to  redden  vegetable  blues — which  lisrlit  has  to  blacken 
chloride  of  silver,  and  the  power  which  the  cellular  tissues  of 
living  bodies  possess  of  absorbing  contiguous  matter.  In  using 
the  phrase  in  this  sense,  we  must  always  remember  that  pro- 
perties, in  order  to  action,  require  an  adjustment  of  two  or  more 
bodies  to  each  other. 

Secondly,  The  relation  of  the  cause  in  actual  operation 
to  its  effects,  or  the  action  of  two  or  more  bodies  so  adjusted 
that  their  properties  operate.  Thus,  while  the  power  of  the 
sunbeams  to  colour  the  vegetable  juices  may  be  regarded  as  a 
property,  the  sunbeams  and  juices  so  acting  as  to  colour  the 
leaves  may  be  regarded  as  a  cause  in  actual  operation.  The 
power  of  oxygen  to  combine  with  iron  is  a  property  of  the  oxy- 
gen, but  a  property  having  reference  to  the  iron  ;  the  oxygen 
and  iron  concurring  to  produce  rust,  is  an  example  of  a  cause. 
We  have  also  illustrations  of  causes  in  the  co-operation  of  the 
>oxygen  and  carbon,  of  the  alkali  and  acid,  of  the  cellular  tissues 
:and  the  inorganic  substances  on  which  they  work.  It  is  only 
;in  the  sense  now  before  us  that  we  can  speak  with  propriety 
of  the  action  of  a  law  of  nature.  But  let  it  be  observed,  that 
such  a  law,  when  in  continued  action,  implies  a  continuation  of 
the  relation  of  two  or  more  bodies  to  each  other. 

Thirdly,  A  generalized  set  of  facts,  or  objects  and  events 
grouped  together  by  points  of  resemblance.  We  have  observed 
that  all  quadrupeds  are  mammalia,  and  that  children  are  of  the 
same  species  as  their  parents,  and  we  call  these  general  facts, 
laws  of  nature.  Of  this  same  description  are  the  laws  of  the 
revolution  of  the  seasons,  of  human  mortality,  of  the  distribu- 
tion of  the  plants  over  the  earth's  surface,  of  the  variation  of 
the  magnetic  needle,  and  those  empirical  laws  regarding  heat 
and  electricity  which  scientific  inquirers  are  so  earnestly  seek- 
ing to  discover  in  the  present  day.     We  see  at  once  how  these 


LAWS  OF  NATURE.  83 

generalized  facts  or  laws  differ  from  causes.  That  day  and  night 
follow  each  other  may  be  represented  as  a  general  law  ;  but  we 
cannot  speak  of  the  night  causing  the  day,  or  the  day  causing 
the  night.  Using  the  term  "law  of  nature  "in  the  sense  of  a 
generalized  set  of  facts,  we  cannot  speak  of  the  action  of  a  general 
law,  or  ascribe  to  it  a  power  of  production.*  These  generalized 
or  general  laws,  it  may  be  farther  noticed,  are  not  simple  but 
composite,  and  the  result,  as  we  shall  see  in  a  future  section,  of 
adjustments  often  very  complicated  and  recondite. 

The  power  of  the  sun's  rays  to  colour  vegetable  juices,  is  an 
example  of  a  property.  The  sun's  rays  falling  on  the  juices, 
is  an  instance  of  a  cause — the  two  components  of  which  are  the 
sun's  rays  and  the  chemical  elements  of  the  leaves.  Those 
cosmical  arrangements  by  which  the  sun's  rays  fall  daily  on  the 
plants,  and  by  which  they  fall  on  them  more  powerfully  and  for 
a  greater  length  of  time  during  summer — these  give  the  annual 
cycle  of  the  colouring  of  the  leaves  of  plants,  which  may  be  taken 
as  an  illustration  of  a  general  law,  the  result  of  the  mutual 
adjustment  of  many  bodies  possessing  different  properties. 

It  is  of  the  utmost  importance  that  we  be  able  to  separate 
these  three  things.  To  some  extent  connected,  in  that  they  all 
imply  order,  they  differ  in  other  and  more  important  respects. 
Properties  are  simple,  being  the  rule  of  the  action  of  bodies  upon 
one  another.  Material  causes  are  always  duplex  or  complex, 
implying  the  exercise  of  the  properties  of  more  than  one  body. 
General  laws  are  necessarily  multiplex,  and  are  not  the  causes 
but  the  results  of  a  vast  number  of  arrangements.  The  first, 
or  properties  as  we  shall  call  them,  are  capable  of  action  only 
when  certain  needful  conditions  are  fulfilled.  The  second,  or 
causes,  are  these  properties  in  operation  in  consequence  of  the 
conditions  of  action  being  furnished.  The  third,  or  general  laws 
as  we  shall  call  them,  are  a  collection  of  natural  objects  so 
resembling  each  other  that  we  class  them  together.  In  a  loose 
way,  it  may  be  proper  enough  to  call  them  all  by  one  name,  as 
significant  of  the  order  which  reigns  in  the  world ;  but  in  doing 
so  there  is  always  a  risk  of  our  sliding  unconsciously  from  the 

*  While  preparing  this  4th  edition,  we  are  gratified  to  notice  a  similar  statement 
by  M.  Prcvost,  just  published  in  Sir  William  Hamilton's  edition  of  Stewart,  vol. 
iii.,  Ap.,  Art.  II.  "  Je  passe  aremarquer  la  difference  entre  loi  et  cause.  Une  loi 
est  un  rapport  .  .  .  une  generalization;  une  loi  ne  peut  agir.  II  faut  done  un 
agent ;  une  cause,  pour  realiser  un  changement." 


84  LAWS  OF  NATURE. 

one  to  the  other,  and  predicating  of  one  what  is  true  only  of 
another,  or  of  all  what  is  true  only  of  one. 

In  contemplating  the  world  at  a  given  instant — the  contem- 
poraneous world — we  find  it  composed  of  substances  with  their 
properties  adjusted  to  each  other.  These  properties  (and  not 
laws)  constitute  the  primary,  or  rather  the  sole  moving  power 
residing  in  the  physical  world.  Again,  in  contemplating  the 
successive  world,  or  the  world  in  its  changes,  we  find  the  sub- 
stances actually  operating  according  to  their  properties,  and  we 
have  causes  producing  effects.  We  examine  now  the  results  pro- 
duced, and  we  find  that  these  properties  and  causes  have  been  so 
arranged  as  to  produce  general  laivs,  or  a  beautiful  order  in  respect 
of  number,  form,  time,  and  colour  throughout  the  whole  of  nature. 

If  these  views  be  correct,  properties  variously  combined  are 
the  spring  of  all  action,  of  all  production  in  physical  nature ; 
leading,  in  consequence  of  their  adjustment  to  causal  operations, 
and  as  the  result  of  their  skilful  combination,  to  general  laws, 
which  can  be  noticed  by  the  intelligent  observer.  The  arrange- 
ments of  nature  are  often  very  complicated,  and  it  is  difficult  to 
arrive  at  the  original  properties  from  which  action  proceeds,  and 
of  which  general  laws  are  the  result.  But  properties  of  bodies 
seem  to  be  the  powers  at  the  base  of  all  action,  and  they  are  the 
powers  which  we  reach  in  the  last  resort  in  the  inquiry  into  the 
processes  of  the  material  universe. 

All  action  of  material  substances  implies  adjustment ;  all  opera- 
tion of  cause  and  effect,  the  existence  of  similar  circumstances ; 
and  general  effects  or  laws  imply  the  continuance  of  the  same 
adjusted  circumstances.  In  order  to  the  production  of  any  effect, 
there  must  be  substances  in  an  adjusted  relation  to  each  other. 
In  order  to  the  production  of  a  succession  of  general  effects, 
these  substances  must  continue  to  bear  the  same  relation,  or  the 
relation  must  be  recurrent  or  repeating.  These  views,  however, 
will  be  better  comprehended  after  taking  a  survey  of  the  illus- 
trations of  adjustment  to  be  given  in  the  next  section. 

But  before  closing  this  section,  the  remark  is  forced  upon  us, 
that  if  these  distinctions  had  been  kept  in  view,  we  should  never 
have  heard  of  gravitation  or  any  other  property  of  matter  being 
represented  as  a  principle  capable  of  creating  or  sustaining  the 
universe,  for  it  would  have  been  seen  that  the  properties  of 
natural  substances  require  certain  adjustments  as  conditions  of 


LAWS  OF  NATURE.  85 

their  action,  or  at  least  beneficial  action.  Nor  would  we  have 
heard  of  a  mere  general  fact  being  employed  to  explain  the 
production  of  any  phenomenon.  There  is  an  important  class  of 
the  sciences,  which  may  be  called  the  classificatory,  embracing 
the  various  branches  of  natural  history,  and  in  them  the  laws 
are  of  that  description  which  we  have  arranged  as  the  third, 
being  mere  general  facts  observed  by  experience.  These  sciences 
are  satisfied  when  they  can  group  objects  into  classes  in  the 
maimer  referred  to.  But  all  investigation  into  production  or 
change  carries  us  at  last  to  substances  with  their  qualities. 
Scientific  investigation  has  gone,  we  apprehend,  to  its  farthest 
point,  when  it  has  discovered  the  substances  and  qualities,  and 
the  conditions  needful  to  their  operation.  The  mind  will  not 
rest  till  it  reaches  this  limit ;  for  it  knows  that  all  given  pheno- 
mena must  proceed  from  certain  bodies,  having  fixed  properties 
which  it  is  bent  upon  discovering.  Having  gone  this  length,  it 
should  feel  that  it  can  go  no  farther.  In  astronomy,  we  arrive 
at  last  at  gravitation,  and  the  relation  of  the  celestial  bodies 
which  enables  that  property  to  act,  and  we  feel  that  inquiry 
must  now  cease.  In  chemistry,  we  ascertain  that  a  certain 
compound  is  composed  of  two  or  more  elementary  substances, 
which  unite  according  to  a  certain  rule,  and  the  mind  must  rest 
here  for  ever,  for  it  can  get  no  farther. 

These  views  might  be  usefully  applied  to  check  all  those  rash 
conclusions  which  men  of  science,  falsely  so  called,  have  been 
drawing  in  regard  to  the  formation  and  past  history  of  the  world, 
which  they  would  explain  by  referring  them  to  the  laws  of 
nature,  these  laws  being  the  mere  generalized  facts  of  natural 
history.*  Truly  these  persons  know  not  what  they  mean  by 
the  laws  of  nature,  though  no  phrase  is  so  frequently  in  their 
mouths.  To  refer  a  phenomenon  to  a  law,  in  the  sense  in  which 
they  use  the  word,  is  merely  to  show  that  certain  other  pheno- 
mena resemble  it  in  some  respects,  but  does  not  furnish  an 

*  That  there  is  an  order  and  progression — that  is,  a  law — in  the  works  of  crea- 
tion, is  implied  in  the  Scripture  account  of  the  six  days,  (however  interpreted,)  and 
follows  from  the  discoveries  of  geologists,  and  should  be  frankly  admitted  by  the 
opponents  of  the  author  of  the  "  Vestiges  of  Creation."  But  order  is  not  production. 
The  fact  that  one  colour  runs  into  another  in  a  painting  is  no  proof  that  the  one 
colour  produces  the  other.  The  author's  real  facts  prove  that  there  is  an  order 
in  the  works  of  God,  but  do  not  show  that  there  is  any  power  in  nature  capable  of 
producing  a  new  species  of  animal,  or  of  transmuting  one  species  into  another. 


86  ADJUSTMENT  OF  THE  MATERIAL  SUBSTANCES 

explanation  of  its  production  ;  nay,  it  brings  instead  uncle* 
notice  other  phenomena,  all  requiring  to  be  explained  as  to 
the  manner  of  their  production.  Events,  whether  we  are  or 
are  not  able  to  arrange  them  in  a  law — that  is,  in  a  class — 
have  all  a  producing  cause  different  from  themselves.  We  are 
entitled  to  demand  of  those  who  would  explain  all  nature  by 
natural  law,  that  they  point  out  a  cause  of  those  products  which 
they  think  they  have  sufficiently  explained  when  they  have 
arranged  them  in  a  class.  When  we  are  constrained  to  acknow- 
ledge in  regard  to  any  phenomenon,  that  it  could  not  have 
had  a  cause  in  a  material  substance,  the  mind  will  not  rest 
satisfied  till  it  call  in  a  spiritual  substance  possessed  of  such 
power  and  intelligence  as  to  be  able  to  produce  the  effects. 

Let  it  be  observed,  too,  how  widely  the  argument  for  an  intel- 
ligent cause  of  the  material  universe  extends.  In  all  physical 
action  there  is  the  presence  of  two  or  more  bodies  with  their 
properties,  and  an  adjustment  as  the  condition  of  their  operation. 
It  is  this  circumstance  which  renders  matter  so  inert  in  itself, 
and  so  dependent  on  the  Governor  of  the  world.  Matter  can  act 
only  when  arrangements  are  made  for  it,  and  can  act  beneficently 
only  when  the  arrangements  are  beneficent.  But  the  power  of 
making  arrangements  cannot  be  found  within  the  capacity  of 
dead  or — if  any  one  prefers  it — of  living  matter.  The  skill  and 
benevolence  shown  in  these  arrangements  conduct  to  the  belief 
in  a  skilful  and  benevolent  cause.  The  argument  for  the  exist- 
ence of  God  is  thus  widened,  and  rendered  as  extensive  as  the 
action  of  the  physical  universe. 

SECT.    II. — ADJUSTMENT   OF    THE   MATERIAL   SUBSTANCES   WITH 
THEIR  PROPERTIES  TO  EACH  OTHER. 

An  approximation  has  been  made  to  an  enumeration  of  the 
elementary  substances  in  nature.  There  has  been  no  attempt, 
however,  to  number  the  properties  of  matter.  The  essential 
properties  of  matter— that  is,  the  properties  found  in  matter 
under  every  form — have  been  ascertained,  it  is  supposed  ;  but 
the  separate  qualities  of  the  elementary  substances  have  not 
been  determined,  and  no  one  has  proposed  to  himself  the  task 
of  defining  all  the  qualities  of  the  compound  substances  in  the 
animal,  the  vegetable,  and  the  mineral  kingdoms.     Science  is 


WITH  THEIR  PROPERTIES  TO  EACH  OTHER.  S7 

making  vigorous  efforts  to  master  the  whole  domains  of  nature  ; 
but  its  investigations  are  ever  opening  new  wonders,  of  the  exist- 
ence of  which  the  imagination  did  not  so  much  as  dream.  In 
every  part  of  nature  there  are  latent  powers  at  work,  giving 
intimations,  by  signs  which  cannot  be  mistaken,  of  their  exist- 
ence, but  not  deigning  to  afford  any  insight  into  their  nature. 

It  is  out  of  these  substances,  simple  and  compound,  with  their 
several  properties,  that  God  hath  constructed  the  visible  universe. 
We  speak  of  the  construction  of  the  universe  as  something 
separate  from,  and  additional  to,  the  simple  substances  and 
properties ;  for  it  is  possible  to  conceive  of  the  matter  of  the 
universe  with  its  properties  being  the  same,  and  yet  the  universe 
being  different  from  the  existing  one,  for  the  powers,  instead 
of  conspiring  and  co-operating,  might  have  only  opposed  and 
thwarted  each  other,  and  resulted,  not  in  order,  but  in  a  never- 
ending  confusion,  worse  than  the  chaos  which  the  poets  describe. 

It  is  delightful  to  find  that,  at  this  part  of  our  inquiries,  we 
can  refer  to  one  who  combined  in  himself  qualities  which  are 
often  dissevered  in  others — the  popular  orator  and  scientific 
inquirer,  the  philosopher  and  divine,  uniting  simple  faith  with 
the  boldest  spirit  of  speculation,  standing  firmly  on  the  earth 
while  he  measures  the  heavens,  and  after  his  imagination  has 
taken  the  widest  excursions,  and  his  understanding  has  con- 
structed the  noblest  theories,  ever  returning  to  sit  at  the  feet  of 
his  Divine  teacher.  Adopting  the  views  set  forth  in  those  por- 
tions of  Dr.  Chalmers's  Bridgewater  Treatise  and  Natural  Theo- 
logy, in  which  he  treats  of  what  he  calls  the  collocations  or 
dispositions  of  matter,  we  hope  to  be  able  to  give  them  a  greater 
extension,  and  a  more  special  definiteness. 

There  are,  it  appears,  about  sixty  elementary  substances  in 
nature  with  their  separate  rules  of  action,  and  there  are  combi- 
nations of  these  elementary  substances,  and  of  the  properties 
possessed  by  them,  so  many  that  they  cannot  be  numbered,  and 
so  diversified  that  they  cannot  be  classified,  while  there  is  a 
certain  room  in  boundless  space  allowed  for  these  substances, 
and  the  play  of  their  several  qualities.  The  wisdom  of  God  is 
specially  seen  in  the  adjustment  of  the  several  material  sub- 
stances with  their  properties  to  each  other.  Not  that  there  may 
not  be  wisdom  exhibited  in  the  formation  of  each  separate  sub- 
stance considered  in  itself,  and  in  the  properties,  more  especially 


88  ADJUSTMENT  OF  THE  MATERIAL  SUBSTANCES 

the  co-existence  of  the  properties,  with  which  it  is  endowed. 
Astronomers  have  asserted  that  there  is  a  wonderful  beauty 
discoverable  in  the  circumstance  that  the  law  of  gravitation 
varies  inversely  according  to  the  square  of  the  distance  ;  and  it 
is  certain  that  if  it  had  varied  according  to  any  other  rule,  the 
same  purposes  could  not  have  been  served  by  it  in  the  actual 
mundane  system.  There  is  manifestly  a  wTisdom  shown  in  the 
nature  and  properties  of  the  elementary  substances,  some  of 
them  being,  at  the  common  temperature  of  the  earth,  gaseous 
and  singularly  pervading  and  permeating,  others  being  fluid  and 
easily  moved,  and  the  common  metals  being  as  useful,  in  con- 
sequence of  their  solidity  and  coherence,  as  the  gases  are  in 
virtue  of  their  elasticity  and  mobility.  But  admitting  all  this, 
we  are  still  inclined  to  think  that  it  is  chiefly  in  the  adaptation 
of  these  substances  with  their  properties  to  each  other  that  we 
are  to  discover  the  presence  and  the  wisdom  of  God. 

We  may  discover  the  wisdom  of  the  Disposer  of  all  things 
in  the  adjustment  of  nature  in  respect  of  four  classes  of  relations. 
There  is  the  relation  of  bodies  in  respect  (1.)  of  their  properties, 
(2.)  of  their  quantity,  (3.)  of  space,  and  (4.)  of  time.  It  may 
be  interesting  and  instructive  to  contemplate  some  examples  of 
each  of  these  classes.  Since  the  relations  here  referred  to  belong 
to  various  classes,  we  prefer  the  words  adjustment  or  adaptation 
to  collocation  or  disposition,  (the  words  employed  by  Dr.  Chal- 
mers,) in  so  far  as  the  latter  direct  our  attention  merely  to  that 
class  which  originates  in  the  relations  of  space.*  In  the  illus- 
trations which  follow,  we  have  a  double  object  in  view  ;  the 
one  to  show  that  there  are  such  adjustments  in  nature  ;  and  the 
other,  and  an  ulterior  one,  to  unfold  the  processes  by  which 
general  laws  are  produced. 

First,  There  is  the  adjustment  of  bodies  in  respect  of 
their  properties.     This  is  the  basis  of  all  the  other  adjustments. 

Bodies  have  a  power  of  uniting  in  chemical  and  mechanical 
combination,  and,  again,  a  susceptibility  of  separation.  They 
have  also  magnetic  or  diamagnetic  powers,  electric  attractions 
and  repulsions,  and  affections  or  actions  in  reference  to  the 
absorption,  reflexion,  and  refraction  of  light,  and  the  radiation  and 

*  Mill  talks  of  the  aptly  selected  phrase  of  Dr.  Chalmers,  and  has  made  a  profit- 
able use  of  the  principle.  We  are  better  pleased  with  the  principle  than  with  the 
phrase  employed  to  express  it.     See  Mill's  Logic,  B.  iii.  c.  xii.  §  2. 


WITH  THEIR  PROPERTIES  TO  EACH  OTHER.  S9 

conduction  of  heat.  Each  body  has  in  these  respects  its  own  pro- 
perties in  reference  to  other  bodies.  Nature  is  sustained  by  their 
harmonious  adaptations.  But  in  order  to  their  operation,  the 
bodies  must  have  a  relation  to  suit  the  action  of  their  properties. 
"  The  world,"  says  Faraday,  "  with  its  ponderable  constituents, 
dead  and  living,  is  made  up  of  natural  elements  endowed  with 
nicely  balanced  affections,  attractions,  or  forces.  Elements  the 
most  diverse,  of  tendencies  the  most  opposed,  of  powers  the  most 
varied  ;  some  so  inert,  that  to  a  casual  observer,  they  would  seem 
to  count  for  nothing  in  the  grand  resultant  of  forces ;  some,  on 
the  other  hand,  endowed  with  qualities  so  violent,  that  they  would 
seem  to  threaten  the  stability  of  creation  ;  yet,  when  scrutinized 
more  narrowly,  and  examined  with  relation  to  the  parts  they  are 
destined  to  fulfil,  are  found  to  be  accordant  with  one  great 
scheme  of  harmonious  adaptation.  The  powers  of  not  one  ele- 
ment could  be  modified  without  destroying  at  once  the  balance 
of  harmonies,  and  involving  in  one  ruin  the  economy  of  the 
world."  * 

Every  one  knows  how  needful  the  atmosphere  is  for  the  sus- 
taining of  animal  and  vegetable  life.  When  air  is  inhaled  by  a 
living  being,  its  oxygen  unites  with  the  carbon  of  the  blood  to 
produce  carbonic  acid  ;  and  the  combination  being  a  kind  of  com- 
bustion, is  one  source  of  the  heat  necessary  to  the  preservation  of 
the  frame.  But  for  the  skilful  composition  of  the  atmosphere 
and  the  greater  disposition  of  oxygen  to  unite  with  carbon  than 
with  nitrogen,  and  the  production  of  heat  by  the  chemical 
combination  of  carbon  and  oxygen,  it  is  evident  that  animation 
could  not  be  sustained.  It  appears  that  a  slight  change  in  the 
composition  of  the  atmosphere,  or  even  the  chemical  instead  of 
the  mechanical  combination  of  its  two  elements,  would  render  it 
no  longer  capable  of  accomplishing  these  ends.  And  it  is  by  a 
most  skilfully  arranged  process  that  the  atmosphere,  amid  the 
changes  which  it  undergoes  in  fulfilling  its  offices,  is  still  enabled 
to  retain  its  purity.  The  germination  of  plants,  and  the  respira- 
tion of  animals,  are  constantly  active  in  producing  carbonic  acid, 
and  in  setting  nitrogen  free.  But  these  in  excess  would  give  the 
air  a  deadly  tendency,  and  this  is  prevented  by  a  beautiful  pro- 
vision, whereby  the  carbon  of  the  carbonic  acid  is  absorbed  by 
plants,  as  being  necessary  for  their  sustenance,  and  in  the 
*  Lectures  on  Non-Metallic  Elements,  pp.  290,  291. 


90  ADJUSTMENT  OF  THE  MATERIAL  SUBSTANCES 

absorption  the  oxygen  is  set  free  to  join  the  superfluous  nitrogen 
liberated  by  the  other  processes.  The  animal  and  vegetable 
kingdoms  are  thus  made  to  balance  and  sustain  each  other, 
according  to  a  general  law  ;  but  this,  be  it  observed,  by  means  of 
the  most  skilfully  arranged  adjustment  of  the  properties  of  bodies 
to  each  other. 

The  different  powers  which  bodies  have  of  absorbing  and 
radiating  heat  also  furnish  illustrations  of  the  skilful  adjust- 
ments with  which  nature  abounds.  The  grass  and  foliage  ab- 
sorb heat  in  the  summer  season  during  the  day,  and  again 
radiate  it  into  the  clear  atmosphere  at  night,  till  the  plants  are 
so  reduced  in  temperature  as  to  congeal  the  moisture  floating 
in  the  air  into  the  dew  necessary  to  refresh  them.  Every 
separate  plant  has  its  peculiar  power  in  this  respect,  and  by 
means  of  the  colour  of  its  leaves  keeps  the  measure  of  heat, 
and  seeks  the  measure  of  dew  needful  to  its  wellbeing.  How 
curious,  too,  that  circuit  according  to  which  the  earth  receives 
heat  from  the  beams  of  the  sun  while  it  is  above  the  horizon, 
again  to  give  out,  when  the  sun  has  set,  that  heat  to  the  air, 
whose  temperature  is  thus  equalized  !  There  is  a  singular  coun- 
terpart process  by  which  moisture  is  evaporated  into  the  air  by 
the  heat  during  the  day,  and  again  given  back  to  the  earth  at 
night,  fulfilling  important  functions  in  both  these  positions. 

Such  circuits  as  these  abound  in  the  works  of  God,  and  indi- 
cate a  nice  and  constantly  sustained  adjustment.  There  is  such 
a  rotation  in  that  system  according  to  which  rude  matter  is  first 
taken  into  vegetable  composition,  then  enters  the  animal  frame 
as  food,  and  in  the  end  returns  to  the  ground  to  restore  its 
proper  composition.  Another  equally  beautiful  circle  is  described 
by  those  processes  in  which  moisture  is  evaporated  from  the 
land  and  sea,  refreshes  the  air  above,  and  thence  descends  upon 
the  ground  to  revive  its  life,  and  to  gush  out  in  streams ;  the 
waters  of  which,  after  serving  many  bountiful  purposes,  again 
find  their  way  back  to  the  ocean.  There  is  doubtless  a  similar 
balancing  in  the  method  by  which  the  ocean  is  kept  in  a  healthy 
state,  suited  to  the  organisms  which  live  in  it.  Aquavivaria 
have  been  formed  in  which  any  pollution  produced  by  plants 
has  been  counteracted  by  the  introduction  of  certain  molluscs, 
and  the  water  maintained  in  purity  for  years.  This  artificial 
process  seems  to  be  founded  upon,  and  to  imply  a  natural  bal- 


WITH  THEIR  PROPERTIES  TO  EACH  OTHER.  91 

ance  of  vegetable  and  animal  organisms  in  the  great  ocean.  Nor 
should  it  be  forgotten  that  meteorology  promises  to  be  exalted 
into  a  science  by  the  late  discoveries,  in  regard  to  the  "  wind 
returning  according  to  his  circuits." 

Now,  all  these  balanced  and  balancing  processes  necessarily 
involve  the  most  skilful  adjustments  of  the  properties  of  air, 
earth,  and  water,  and  of  organic  and  animal  life  the  one  to  the 
other. 

Secondly,  There  is  the  adjustment  of  bodies  in  respect 
to  quantity. 

We  have  just  been  noticing  how  needful  it  is  that  the  atmos- 
phere should  keep  its  present  composition.  That  composition  is 
approximately  as  follows,  in  tons  : — 

Nitrogen,  3,994,592,925,000,000 

Oxygen,  1,233,010,020,000,000 

Carbonic  Acid,         5,287,305,000,000 
Aqueous  Vapour,   54,459,750,000,000 

5,287,350,000,000,000 

The  four  elements  of  the  atmosphere — oxygen,  nitrogen,  car- 
bon, and  hydrogen — are  also  the  essential  elements  of  all  vege- 
table and  animal  substances;  and  the  two,  the  atmosphere  above 
and  organized  substances  on  the  earth,  being  thus  to  a  great 
extent  the  same  in  their  composition,  are  made  to  sustain  each 
other's  functions.  For  the  respiration  of  human  beings,  one 
thousand  millions  of  pounds  of  oxygen  are  daily  required,  and 
four  times  this  quantity  are  necessary  for  all  the  functions  of 
nature,  including  the  respiration  of  man  and  animals,  combus- 
tion, fermentation,  and  decay.  The  very  statement  is  sufficient 
to  show  how  admirable  the  adjustment  of  the  relative  mass  and 
the  total  mass  of  these  separate  elements  must  be,  in  order  to 
keep  in  motion  the  mechanism  of  nature.  An  atmosphere  of  a 
different  composition,  or  liable  to  material  changes  in  respect  of 
any  of  its  component  parts,  would  have  been  utterly  unfitted  to 
support  either  animal  or  vegetable  existence. 

Every  one  knows  how  powerful  an  influence  the  ocean  exercises 
upon  the  temperature  of  our  globe.  A  change  in  the  quantity  of 
its  waters,  or  in  their  distribution,  might  speedily  extinguish 
both  the  flora  and  fauna  of  the  earth.  It  has  been  shown,  that, 
in  order  to  the  existence  of  organic  beings,  there  must  be  the 
most  skilful  adjustment  between  their  structure  and  habits  on  the 


92  ADJUSTMENT  OF  THE  MATERIAL  SUBSTANCES 

one  hand,  and  the  distribution  of  land  and  water  on  the  other. 
An  increase  or  diminution  to  a  considerable  extent  of  the  bulk  of 
the  waters  of  the  ocean,  and  consequently  of  their  equalizing 
influence,  would  so  affect  the  temperature  as  to  render  it  doubtful 
if  any  of  the  existing  species  of  plants  and  animals  could  survive. 

The  mass  of  our  planet,  with  its  power  of  gravity,  is  in  admir- 
able adaptation  to  the  plants  which  grow  upon  its  surface,  and 
the  living  beings  that  people  it.  Were  our  earth  much  larger  or 
much  le^s  than  it  is,  the  force  with  which  it  attracted  bodies  at 
its  surface  would  be  so  different,  that  the  greater  number  of  the 
plants  would  die,  and  the  animals  which  did  not  become  extinct 
would  lead  a  burdensome  existence.  It  seems  that  plants  pump 
up,  by  means  of  some  internal  force,  the  sap  which  is  needful  for 
their  sustenance.  It  requires  no  little  force  thus  to  raise  the  sap 
till  it  reaches  every  branch  and  leaf  of  the  living  tree.  An  ex- 
periment  has  been  tried  with  a  vine  at  the  bleeding  season.  A 
branch  of  a  growing  plant  was  amputated,  and  a  glass  tube  was 
placed  upon  the  stump,  and  the  sap  was  pushed  to  no  less  a 
height  than  twenty-one  feet  in  the  tube.  Now,  were  the  earth 
heavier  than  it  is,  and  consequently  the  power  of  gravity  increased, 
the  plant  could  not  with  its  present  organization  draw  up  the 
necessary  moisture ;  and  on  the  other  hand,  were  the  force  of 
gravity  lessened,  the  sap  would  rise  so  rapidly  as  to  derange  all 
the  functions  of  the  plant.  The  author  from  whom  we  have 
taken  this  illustration  also  supplies  us  with  another  in  the  flowers 
that  hang  their  heads,  in  the  structure  of  which  it  is  arranged  that 
the  pistils  are  longer  than  the  stamens ;  and  thus  the  dust  needful 
for  the  fertility  of  the  flower  is  enabled  to  fall  from  the  extremity 
of  the  stamens  upon  the  extremity  of  the  pistil.  "  An  earth  greater 
or  smaller,  denser  or  rarer,  than  the  one  on  which  we  live,  would 
require  a  change  in  the  structure  and  strength  of  the  footstalks 
of  all  the  little  flowers  that  hang  their  heads  under  our  hedges. 
There  is  something  curious  in  thus  considering  the  whole  mass 
from  pole  to  pole,  and  from  circumference  to  centre,  as  employed 
in  keeping  a  snow-drop  in  the  position  most  suited  to  the  promo- 
tion of  its  vegetable  health."* 

We  tind,  too,  that  the  size  of  the  earth  bears  an  admirable 
relation  to  the  muscular  strength  of  man  and  animals.     Were  the 
earth  increased  or  lessened  in  its  mass,  the  greatest  inconvenience 
*  Whewell's  Astronomy  and  Physics,  p.  48. 


"WITH  THEIR  PROPERTIES  TO  EACH  OTHER.  93 

would  follow.  Were  our  planet,  for  instance,  as  large  as  Jupiter, 
or  Saturn,  or  Neptune,  motion  would  be  oppressive  in  the  extreme 
to  every  living  being.  The  hare  would  crawl  like  the  sloth  ;  the 
eagle's  flight  would  be  less  extended  than  that  of  our  domestic  ani- 
mals ;  and  man,  as  if  moving  under  a  heavy  burden,  would  become 
exhausted,  and  fall  down  to  the  ground  upon  the  least  exertion. 
Nor  is  it  to  be  forgotten  that  in  such  a  case  the  air  would  become 
so  dense  that  no  animal  could  breathe  it,  and  press  so  heavily  that 
it  is  doubtful  if  any  animal  could  sustain  the  weight.  On  the 
other  hand,  were  the  earth  as  small  as  Mercury  or  the  Moon, 
the  animal  would  be  exposed  to  opposite  inconveniences :  all  our 
motions  would  be  unstable  and  uncertain,  like  that  of  a  person  in 
a  state  of  intoxication ;  every  blow  directed  against  us  would 
prostrate  us  to  the  ground,  while  the  air  would  become  so  thin 
as  to  be  incapable  of  supporting  animal  life.  In  the  one  state  of 
things,  man  would  be  like  a  captive  loaded  with  chains,  and  in  the 
other,  like  a  person  dizzy  and  staggering  through  feverishness 
and  loss  of  blood. 

Thirdly,  There  is  the  adjustment  of  bodies  with  their 
properties  in  respect  of  space. 

These  skilful  collocations  abound  on  the  earth  :  as  in  the  posi- 
tion of  the  organs  in  the  animal  and  vegetable  frames,  so  exactly 
adapted  to  their  functions  ;  and  in  the  distribution  of  plants  and 
animals  over  the  surface  of  the  globe,  so  nicely  accordant  with 
the  situation  and  climate.  Nature  exhibits  no  such  anomalies  as 
an  eye  placed  in  the  foot,  or  toes  growing  on  the  head,  as  a  camel 
produced  in  the  arctic  and  a  rein-deer  in  the  torrid  regions.  But 
the  adaptations  of  this  description  may  be  seen  most  distinctly 
in  the  heavenly  bodies. 

We  can  conceive  the  properties  of  matter  to  be  as  they  are, 
and  yet  the  result  only  a  jumble  of  incongruities,  because  the 
bodies  happened  to  be  too  near  each  other,  or  at  too  great  a 
distance.  If  the  moon,  for  instance,  had  been  much  nearer  the 
earth  than  it  is,  the  tides  of  the  ocean  would  have  run  so  high 
that  navigation  must  have  been  all  but  impossible.  The  plane- 
tary system  would  never  have  moved,  or  would  long  ago  have 
gone  to  wreck,  if,  along  with  the  present  laws,  there  had  not  also 
been  a  skilful  collocation  of  the  various  bodies.  The  profound 
mind  of  Newton  thought  it  inexplicable  by  natural  causes,  and 
to  be  ascribed  to  the  counsel  and  contrivance  of  a  voluntary 


94  ADJUSTMENT  OF  THE  MATERIAL  SUBSTANCES 

agent,  that  the  body  placed  in  the  centre  of  the  system  should 
have  been  the  only  one  qualified  to  give  to  all  the  rest  the  light 
and  heat  without  which  their  organisms  would  have  perished. 
It  is  conceivable  that  all  the  present  bodies  might  exist  in  the 
solar  system,  and  obey  the  law  of  gravitation,  and  yet  only  con- 
fusion be  the  result.  The  planets  might  have  been  so  placed  as  to 
be  ever  clashing  with  and  disturbing  each  other  in  their  spheres; 
and  the  law  of  gravitation,  from  its  very  potency,  would  be  the 
means  of  propagating  a  wider  disorder.  The  conditions  needful 
for  the  proper  working  and  stability  of  the  planetary  system 
are — first,  that  almost  all  the  planets  move  round  the  sun,  in 
nearly  the  planes  of  the  sun's  equator ;  secondly,  that  they  all 
revolve  round  the  sun  in  the  same  direction,  which  is  that  of 
the  sun's  rotation  on  his  axis  ;  thirdly,  that  they  rotate  on  their 
axes  also  in  that  direction ;  and,  fourthly,  that  the  satellites 
move  round  the  primaries  in  the  same  direction.  In  all  these 
adjustments  we  are  constrained  to  observe  a  prescient  Intelli- 
gence. We  see  that  such  language  as  that  of  Ponte'coulant  is 
as  philosophically  incorrect  as  it  is  impious  and  profane,  when 
he  talks  of  "  the  great  law  of  universal  gravitation  as  probably 
the  only  efficient  principle  of  the  creation  of  the  physical  world 
as  it  is  of  its  preservation."*  So  far  from  the  law  of  gravitation 
being  a  principle  of  creation,  it  needs  an  adjustment  made  to  it 
as  the  condition  of  its  beneficial  action. 

Fourthly,  There  is  the  adjustment  of  bodies  to  each 
other  in  respect  of  time. 

Such  adaptations  are  very  numerous  in  the  animal  economy, 
where  organs  appear  at  the  very  time  at  which  they  are  needed. 
The  teeth,  which  would  be  useless  to  the  infant,  and  worse  than 
useless  to  the  infant's  mother,  appear  as  soon  as  they  can  be  of 
advantage.  This  illustration  suggests  another,  supplied  by  that 
beautiful  provision  of  nature  according  to  which  the  mother's 
milk  flows  at  the  very  period  when  the  wants  of  her  new-born 
infant  require  it,     "  It  has  been  adduced  as  a  striking  illustra- 

*  Quoted  in  Nichol's  Thoughts,  p.  85.  We  may  add,  that  even  on  the  suppo- 
sition that  the  planetary  system  has  been  formed  by  the  cooling  of  a  rotating 
mass  of  sidereal  matter,  according  to  the  hypothesis  of  Laplace,  we  are  constrained 
to  discover  adaptations  in  the  original  composition  and  properties  of  the  sidereal 
matter,  in  its  rotation,  in  the  laws  of  the  cooling  process,  and  in  the  planets, 
(at  least  the  earth,)  being  cast  off  in  a  state  fitting  them  to  support  animated 
existence,  &c. 


WITH  THEIR  PROPERTIES  TO  EACH  OTHER.  95 

tion  of  the  Divine  foresight,  that  the  season  of  the  birth  of  the 
young  of  certain  animals  should  be  adjusted  to  the  season  of  the 
year,  and  to  the  period  of  the  food  most  conducive  to  its  well- 
being  ;  the  preparation  for  the  birth  of  the  animal,  and  the 
preparation  for  the  birth  of  its  food,  (say  the  larvas  of  insects,) 
dating  from  very  different  points  of  time."* 

Every  one  acquainted  with  the  elements  of  geology  is  aware 
that,  in  the  past  history  of  our  earth,  there  must  have  been 
numberless  such  adaptations,  in  the  plants  and  animals  being 
suited  to  the  particular  era,  with  its  temperature  and  moisture. 
Whewell  has  supplied  us  with  an  illustration,  serving  to  connect 
heavenly  with  terrestrial  phenomena,  when  he  demonstrates  that 
there  is  a  connexion  between  the  length  of  the  year  and  the 
continued  existence  of  the  plants  of  the  earth.  The  rising  of 
the  sap,  the  formation  of  the  juices,  the  opening  of  the  leaves 
and  flowers,  the  ripening  of  the  seed,  and  the  drying  and  ma- 
turing of  it  for  producing  a  new  plant — these  processes  require 
a  certain  period,  and  no  period  would  suit  but  the  actual  year 
of  365  days — that  is,  the  time  which  the  earth  takes  to  complete 
its  revolution  round  the  sun.  We  are  thus  led  to  discover  a 
singular,  and,  we  believe,  divinely  ordained,  adaptation  between 
two  things  which  have  no  physical  connexion — the  seasons  of 
the  plants  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  seasons  of  the  earth  in  its 
orbit  on  the  other. 

These  four  classes  of  adjustment,  compounded  in  all  varieties 
of  ways,  furnish  those  innumerable  traces  of  design  which  are  so 
abundant  in  the  works  of  God,  and  some  few  of  which  have  been 
developed  by  writers  on  natural  theology.f    As  the  most  wonder- 

*  Harris. 

f  There  are  certain  philosophers  who  are  ever  talking  of  the  laws  of  nature,  as 
if  they  could  accomplish  all  that  we  see  in  the  earth  and  heavens  without  the 
necessity  of  calling  in  any  divine  skill  to  arrange  them.  We  have  sometimes 
thought  that  it  might  be  an  appropriate  punishment  to  deal  with  such  persons  as 
Jupiter  did  with  those  who  complained  to  him  of  the  way  in  which  he  regulated 
the  weather.  We  would  give  the  philosophers  referred  to  a  world  of  their  own, 
with  all  the  substances  of  nature,  and  their  properties  labelled  upon  them,  and 
arranged  according  to  human  science,  much  like  the  articles  in  a  museum  or  an 
apothecary's  shop.  We  would  place  the  mineralogist  over  the  metals,  the  anato- 
mist over  the  animals,  and  the  botanist  over  the  vegetable  substances  ;  we  would 
give  the  meteorologist  charge  of  the  atmosphere  and  rain,  and  we  would  furnish 
the  astronomer  with  those  nebulae  out  of  which  it  is  supposed  that  stars  are  formed, 
as  webs  are  fashioned  out  of  fleeces  of  wool.     Having  called  these  philosophers 


96  ADJUSTMENT  OF  THE  MATERIAL  SUBSTANCES 

ful  example  of  these  various  adjustments  combined,  we  are  in- 
clined to  mention  the  organization  of  plants  and  animals.  Such 
organization  implies  the  nicest  mutual  adjustment  of  the  consti- 
tuents of  the  body,  in  their  proper  quantity  and  proportion,  all 
coming  and  departing  at  the  time  required,  and  in  order  to  the 
production  and  development  of  the  form  of  the  body.  "  Organi- 
zation," says  Cuvier,*  "  results  from  a  great  number  of  disposi- 
tions or  arrangements  which  are  conditions  of  life  ;"  and  he  adds, 
"  the  general  motion  would  be  arrested  if  any  of  these  conditions 
should  be  altered,  or  even  upon  the  arresting  of  any  of  the 
partial  motions  of  which  it  is  composed." 

We  look  upon  the  words  "  organization"  and  "  organic  life"  as 
general  names  for  a  most  wonderful  adjustment  of  physical  sub- 
stances for  the  production  of  certain  ends.  It  may  be  all  very 
proper  to  speak  of  a  principle  of  life  as  a  brief  expression  for  a 
general  phenomenon.  But,  as  Dr.  Carpenter  remarks,  "  the  only 
sense  in  which  the  term  'vital  principle'  can  be  properly  used,  is 
as  a  convenient  and  concise  expression  for  the  sum  total  (so  to 
speak)  of  the  powers  which  are  developed  by  the  vital  properties 
or  organized  structures — these  being  not  yet  fully  understood,  and 
the  conditions  of  their  exercise  being  but  imperfectly  known." f 
Let  us  not,  then,  deceive  ourselves  with  the  words  which  we 
employ,  and  suppose  that  life  is  one  indivisible  and  independent 
principle;  a  loose  but  most  unfounded  idea,  lying  at  the  bottom 
of  that  form  of  pantheism  which  says,  that  the  universe,  being 
possessed  of  a  principle  of  life,  is  God.  In  referring  certain 
operations  to  the  principle  of  life,  we  have  not  explained  them, 
any  more  than  we  have  accounted  for  fire,  by  referring  it  to  the 
combustible  principle.  A  true  explanation  must  exhibit  to  us 
the  mechanical,  chemical,  electric,  and,   above   all,  the   vital 

together  in  cabinet  council,  we  would  there  commit  to  them  these  principm  of  worlds. 
Taking  care  to  retire  to  a  respectful  distance  for  safety,  it  might  be  curious  to  listen 
to  their  disputes  with  one  another ;  and  then,  when  they  had  arranged  their  plans 
of  operation,  to  find  the  chemist  blown  up  by  his  own  gases,  the  mineralogist 
sinking  in  the  excavations  which  he  had  made,  the  anatomist  groaning  under 
disease,  the  botanist  pining  for  hunger,  the  weather-regulator  deluged  with  his 
own  rain,  and  the  astronomer  driven  ten  thousand  leagues  into  space  by  the 
recalcitration  of  some  refractory  planet.  We  may  be  sure  that  these  philosophers 
would  be  the  first  to  beg  of  Him  who  is  the  Disposer  as  well  as  the  Creator  of  all 
things,  to  resume  the  government  of  his  own  world. 

*  Regne  Animal,  Introduction. 

f  Manual  of  Physiology,  B.  i.  c.  i.  2. 


WITH  THEIR  PROPERTIES  TO  EACH  OTHER.  97 

properties  of  the  parts  of  the  living  body,  together  with  the 
conditions  needful  to  their  operation. 

Organization  is  a  system  of  arrangements  whereby  the  par- 
ticles of  which  the  body  is  composed,  acting  according  to  their 
properties,  do,  by  means  of  such  processes  as  absorption,  assimi- 
lation, and  exhalation,  produce  and  develop  certain  forms  which 
continue  for  a  time,  and  generate  other  organic  life  of  the  same 
species.  Organic  Life  is  a  generic  name  for  those  properties 
which  matter  possesses  only  in  its  organized  state,  or  that  state 
of  peculiar  adjustment  which  is  called  organization.  These 
vital  properties  differ  as  much  from  the  mechanical  and  chemi- 
cal, as  the  mechanical  and  chemical  do  from  one  another.  At- 
tempts are  being  made  to  discover  what  these  properties  are,  as 
possessed  by  cells,  by  tissues,  by  tubes,  by  nerves,  and  we  find 
them  to  be  such  as  that  of  absorption,  of  contractility,  of  irrita- 
bility. Like  all  the  other  properties  of  matter,  they  are  powers 
by  which  one  body  acts  on  another,  and  in  order  to  action  there 
is  therefore  need  of  other  matter,  organized  or  unorganized. 
Hence  we  rind  that  all  organized  bodies  require  nourishment, 
on  which  the  vital  properties  act  in  the  way  of  assimilation  and 
absorption.  Not  only  so,  but  in  order  to  action  there  must  be 
stimuli,  such  as  light,  heat,  moisture,  and  electricity,  which  are 
necessary  conditions  of  all  vital  operation.  No  vital  activity 
can  manifest  itself  without  the  concurrence  both  of  the  organism 
and  the  external  agent.  "  Thus,  a  seed  does  not  germinate  of 
itself;  it  requires  the  influence  of  certain  external  agencies, 
namely,  warmth,  air,  and  moisture  ;  and  it  can  no  more  produce 
a  plant  without  the  operation  of  these,  than  warmth,  air,  and 
moisture  could  produce  it  without  a  germ  prepared  by  a  pre- 
existing organism."* 


*  Manual  of  Physiology,  B.  i.  c.  ii.  2d  ed.  We  like  the  phrase  "  correlation  of  the 
physical  forces,"  employed  by  Mr.  Grove  to  denote  the  intimate  connexion  which 
there  is  between  the  various  physical  forces,  and  their  power  of  calling  forth  each 
other  in  determinable  measure.  We  believe,  too,  that  Carpenter  and  Matteucci 
have  shown  that  there  is  a  similar  correlation  between  the  physical  and  vital 
forces.  The  authors  now  referred  to  are  quite  aware  that  correlation  is  not  iden- 
tity, and  hence  they  are  careful  to  explain  that  they  do  not  look  upon  the  forces 
as  being  all  the  same.  But  there  is  language  employed  by  them  which  seems  to 
imply  that  one  force  can  be  transmuted  into  another — a  doctrine  which  is  not 
supported  by  anything  like  valid  evidence,  and  is  contrary  to  the  whole  analogy 
of  nature,  which  shows  us,  amidst  constant  changes,  a  constant  permanence  of 

G 


98  ADJUSTMENT  OF  THE  MATERIAL  SUBSTANCES 

There  is  a  vast  number  of  arrangements  needful  in  order 
to  the  germination  of  the  simplest  seed,  a  still  greater  number 
in  order  to  the  action  of  the  more  complicated  organs,  and  a 
number  great  beyond  all  calculation  in  order  to  the  sustaining 
of  a  whole  plant  or  animal.  We  believe  that  organism  in  every 
case  will  be  found  to  be  the  result  of  arrangements  more  won- 
derful than  the  amazingly  skilful  collocation  of  the  bodies  in 
the  solar  system.  There  is  a  more  delicate  adjustment  required 
in  order  to  make  our  muscles  play,  or  the  organisms  of  plants 
to  fulfil  their  function,  than  to  make  a  planet  revolve  in  its  orbit. 
We  rejoice  in  all  those  experiments  which  are  being  made  in 
order  to  discover  the  as  yet  latent  machinery  of  the  living  power. 
Every  true  discovery  in  this  department  will  tend,  we  are  con- 
vinced, to  enhance  our  idea  of  the  riches  of  the  Divine  wisdom. 

We  see  then  how  much  truth,  as  well  as  how  much  error, 
there  is  in  the  ancient  Platonic  idea  that  the  world  is  an  animal 
— an  idea  which  some  of  the  Germans  and  Anglo-Germans  are 
seeking  to  revive.  Nature,  considered  as  a  whole,  resembles  an 
organism  much  more  than  a  human  machine.  In  mechauical 
operation  it  is  the  same  matter  performing  the  same  work.  But 
in  nature,  as  in  organic  life,  there  is  a  continual  shifting  of  the 
agents  and  elements  ;  and  in  the  one,  as  in  the  other,  there  is  a 
constant  uniformity  amid  constant  change.  Like  all  bodies  pos- 
sessed of  life,  nature  has  its  times  and  its  seasons.  It  recruits 
itself  like  the  plant ;  it  renews  its  age  like  the  eagle.  The  pre- 
sent is  the  fruit  of  the  past,  and  bears  the  seed  of  the  future. 
"  I  for  my  part  declare,"  says  Carlyle,  "  the  world  to  be  no 
machine.  I  say  that  it  does  not  go  by  wheel  and  pinion,  motives, 
self-interests,  checks,  and  balances."*  But  if  the  world  is  not  a 
machine,  just  as  little  is  it  a  tree,  a  plant,  an  animal.  It  can- 
not be  explained  by  mechanical  principles,  but  just  as  little  can 
it  be  explained  by  vital  principles.  No  doubt  it  has  a  wonder- 
ful organization,  but  it  has  nothing  in  it  corresponding  to  the 
vital  properties  of  plants,  and  still  less  has  it  anything  like  the 
sensation  possessed  by  the  animal  creation. 

So  far  as  it  does  resemble  the  organization  of  plants,  we  are 
the  more  impressed  with  the  wisdom  involved  in  the  multiplied 

substance  and  property.     We  say  property,  for  matter  possesses  other  qualities 
than  that  of  mere  force.     As  ta  allotropism,  see  Appendix  II. 
*  Heroes  and  Hero-Worship,  Lect.  5. 


WITH  THEIR  PROPERTIES  TO  EACH  OTHER.  99 

contrivances  required  to  sustain  its  continuous  activity.  For  of 
all  parts  of  nature,  organisms  are  the  most  dependent  on  ar- 
rangements which  have  been  made  by  a  higher  power.  The 
principle  of  life  is  not  an  uncreated  self-acting  power,  but  is  the 
result  of  constructions  made  with  unparalleled  skill ;  and  we 
feel,  in  regard  to  it,  that  there  is  no  part  of  nature  so  dependent 
on  God.  There  is  a  similar  multiplicity,  and  to  an  inconceivably 
greater  extent,  in  those  arrangements  by  which  the  world  is  sus- 
tained and  made  to  perform  its  functions ;  and  we  feel  as  if,  be- 
sides the  power  required  to  support  each  part  of  nature,  there 
were  a  still  more  wonderful  power  necessary  to  uphold  it  in  its 
agency  as  a  connected  whole. 


SECT.  III. — SPECIAL  ADJUSTMENTS  REQUIRED  IN  ORDER  TO 
PRODUCE  GENERAL  LAWS  OR  RESULTS. 

The  material  world,  we  have  seen,  (Sect.  I.,)  is  constituted  of 
substances  capable  of  affecting  each  other  according  to  certain 
defined  rules,  which  it  is  the  office  of  observation  to  discover, 
and  these  substances  produce  effects  when  two  or  more  are  ad- 
justed to  each  other  in  respect  of  the  rule  of  their  operation.  In 
his  infinite  wisdom  and  goodness,  God  has  so  arranged  these 
substances  that  beneficent  results  follow.  (See  Sect.  II.)  Some 
of  these  results  are  of  an  individual  character,  and  may  never 
occur  again  in  precisely  the  same  form.  These  will  fall  to  be 
considered  in  the  succeeding  chapter  on  Providence.  Others  are 
of  a  general  character,  and  may  take  the  form  of  general  laws  in 
the  third  sense  of  the  term  as  above  explained.  It  is  upon  these 
that  we  are  now  to  fix  our  attention.  They  are  the  principal 
means  of  producing  order  throughout  the  visible  universe. 

Proceeding  in  a  deductive  method,  we  might  show  that,  as 
two  or  more  substances  when  adjusted  produce  an  individual 
effect,  so  two  or  more  causes  adjusted  produce  a  general  effect. 
Caloric  coming  in  contact  with  the  nerves  and  producing  the 
sensation  of  heat — this  is  an  instance  of  a  particular  effect  fol- 
lowing an  adjustment.  A  body  radiating  caloric  so  placed  as  to 
emit  its  heat  upon  the  bodies  of  animals  in  a  regular  manner — 
the  sun,  for  instance,  on  the  approach  of  summer  raising  the 
myriads  of  living  insects  which  were  dormant  during  winter — 


100  SPECIAL  ADJUSTMENTS  REQUIRED 

this  is  an  example  of  an  adjustment  of  causes  producing  a 
general  effect.  But  it  may  be  more  interesting  and  satisfactory, 
perhaps,  to  proceed  in  an  inductive  method,  and  to  observe  first 
the  general  laws  or  results  which  abound  in  every  department 
of  nature,  and  then  show  how  they  all  proceed  from  a  nice  ar- 
rangement of  causes.  The  history  of  science  shows  that  it  has 
made  progress  after  this  method,  first  observing  the  general 
laws  of  phenomena,  and  from  these  rising  to  causes,  and  the 
conditions  of  their  operation. 

From  the  very  earliest  ages  mankind  felt  an  interest  in  ob- 
serving certain  general  laws  or  facts  in  regard  to  the  motions  of 
the  heavenly  bodies.  The  priests  of  India,  the  shepherds  of 
Chaldea,  and  the  husbandmen  of  Egypt,  began  to  notice  the 
more  useful  or  the  more  startling  facts,  and  handed  down  their 
observations  by  tradition,  and  otherwise,  to  succeeding  genera- 
tions. These  observed  facts  grew  in  number  and  value  with 
advancing  knowledge ;  and  every  modern  astronomer  is  amazed 
at  the  extent  and  accuracy  of  the  information  amassed  at  length 
by  the  astronomers  of  the  Greek  and  Alexandrian  schools.  But 
while  these  parties  attained  to  a  most  extensive  knowledge  of 
facts,  particular  and  general,  these  latter  being  laws,  they  were 
altogether  in  error  as  to  the  causes  of  the  motions  which  they 
observed  and  recorded.  Kepler  completed  this  class  of  inquiries, 
so  far  as  the  planets  were  concerned,  and  furnished  a  generaliza- 
tion as  large  and  correct  as  could  possibly  be  attained  by  mere 
observation.  The  comprehensive  mind  of  Newton  rose  above 
the  mere  observation  of  such  general  phenomena  to  the  discovery 
of  a  cause,  in  a  property  with  which  all  matter,  so  far  as  it  comes 
under  our  notice,  is  endowed,  and  according  to  which  it  attracts 
other  matter  inversely  according  to  the  square  of  the  distance. 
It  was  now  seen  that  all  those  other  general  facts,  still  so  useful 
in  astronomy,  proceeded  from  this  general  property  of  matter, 
and  Trom  the  harmonious  arrangement  of  the  heavenly  bodies, 
in  regard  to  their  bulk  and  situation,  and  the  direction  of  their 
motion.  We  thus  perceive  that  in  the  heavenly  bodies  there 
are  certain  general  harmonies  and  beneficent  arrangements,  such 
as  the  alternation  of  day  and  night,  and  the  revolution  of  the 
seasons,  which  can  be  noticed  independently  of  all  inquiry  into 
causes ;  and  that  the  causes,  when  discovered,  are  found  to  con- 
sist not  in  a  single  property  of  matter,  but  also,  and  more  espe- 


TO  PRODUCE  GENERAL  LAWS  OR  RESULTS.  101 

cially,  in  the  skilful  dispositions  which  have  been  made  with 
that  property  as  one  of  the  constituents. 

Another  and  a  cognate  example  is  suggested.  The  regular 
motion  of  the  tides  must  have  been  observed  from  the  time  that 
men  dwelt  by  the  sea-coast,  or  the  first  adventurer  committed  him- 
self to  the  waters  of  the  ocean  ;  nor  would  it  be  difficult  to  deter- 
mine their  general  periods  of  ebbing  and  flowing.  But  no  explana- 
tion was  given  of  the  observed  facts  till  Newton's  discovery,  when 
it  was  found  to  result  from  the  law  of  gravitation,  as  connected 
with  the  size  and  distance  of  the  moon,  the  magnitude  of  the  earth*, 
and  the  fluidity  and  specific  gravity  of  the  waters  of  the  ocean. 

Take  another  illustration.  The  regular  blowing  of  the  trade 
winds  must  have  been  discovered  at  a  very  early  period  of  the 
history  of  the  world.  The  person  who  was  acquainted  with  the 
way  in  which  these  winds  usually  blow  was  possessed  of  a  gene- 
ral fact.  It  is  only  of  late  years,  however,  that  any  attempt  has 
been  made  to  find  a  cause  of  this  general  result,  lying,  it  is  sup- 
posed, in  the  motion  of  the  earth  round  its  axis,  as  connected 
with  the  laws  of  the  atmosphere,  and  the  particular  distribution 
of  land  and  water.  The  air  heated  at  the  surface  of  the  earth 
in  the  tropical  regions  rises  to  a  higher  level,  and  flows  towards 
the  poles,  where  it  is  cooled,  and  thence  flows  back  to  the  equa- 
tor, being  modified  in  its  current,  however,  by  the  motion  of  the 
earth  on  its  axis,  by  the  extent  of  the  ocean  in  the  tropics,  and 
by  its  relation  to  the  land.  The  person  who  observes  the  gene- 
ral current  of  the  air  is  in  possession  of  a  generalized  fact  which 
it  is  most  useful  to  know ;  the  inquiry  into  the  causes  of  that 
fact  conducts  us  into  another  field,  in  which  we  investigate  the 
properties  of  air,  earth,  and  water  in  their  reference  to  each 
other.  In  much  the  same  way  we  find  that  the  Gulf-stream 
was  observed  long  before  any  particular  cause  could  be  assigned  ; 
and  that  the  periodical  rising  of  the  waters  of  the  Nile  was 
known  and  correctly  registered,  when  there  were  many  disputes 
as  to  the  circumstances  which  produce  it. 

Here  it  may  be  of  some  importance  to  remark,  that  natural 
history  has  very  much,  if  not  altogether,  to  do  with  the  obser- 
vation of  the  general  facts  or  results,  proceeding  from  the  skilful 
adjustments  made  by  the  Maker  of  all  things,  rather  than  with 
causes.  In  investigating  the  vegetable  and  animal  kingdoms, 
the  inquirer  arranges  animals  and  plants  into  species  and  genera 


102  SPECIAL  ADJUSTMENTS  REQUIRED 

by  the  parts  which  they  have  in  common  ;  and  as  he  advances 
he  observes  other  resemblances  less  obvious,  till  he  rises  to  the 
highest  possible  generalizations.  At  the  same  time,  it  should 
be  remembered  that  these  general  facts — the  forms  and  develop- 
ments of  organic  bodies,  and  their  general  resemblances  whereby 
they  are  classified — all  originate  in  particular  properties  of 
matter,  organized  and  unorganized,  and  in  the  skilful  arrange- 
ments that  have  been  made  by  the  Creator.  While  the  mere 
student  of  natural  history  does  not  feel  that  it  is  his  province  to 
inquire  into  such  causes,  others  will  not  be  prevented  from  pur- 
suing the  investigation  this  length,  and  from  endeavouring  to 
determine  the  mechanical,  chemical,  and  organic  properties  by 
which  life  is  sustained  ;  and  the  disclosures,  we  are  persuaded,  if 
not  so  grand,  will  in  many  respects  be  more  wonderful  than  those 
which  have  been  revealed  in  the  study  of  the  planetary  system. 

It  appears,  then,  that  in  investigating  the  works  of  nature, 
our  object  may  be  to  refer  a  given  phenomenon  to  a  general 
rule,  or  to  refer  it  to  a  cause.  These  inquiries  differ  from  each 
other,  though  they  are  often  confounded.  In  the  one  the 
inquirer  is  seeking  after  a  class  of  facts,  and  in  the  other,  after 
what  produced  these  facts ;  in  the  one  he  discovers  resemblances, 
in  the  other  he  reaches  power  or  property.  The  latter,  if  pro- 
secuted sufficiently  far,  will  lead  to  the  discovery  of  a  great 
First  Cause,  and  the  former  is  ever  furnishing  new  illustrations 
of  the  wisdom  residing  in  that  Cause. 

But  this  is  not  the  precise  end  which  we  have  been  seeking 
to  reaeh  by  means  of  this  induction  ;  we  think  that  we  have 
satisfactorily  established  two  very  important  truths. 

The  first  is,  that  the  ivories  of God  are  full  of  general  facts 
or  laws — most  of  them  obvious  to  all  tvho  take  the  pains  to 
inquire  into  them,  and  capable  of  being  discovered  independently 
of  any  examination  of  their  causes. 

The  second  is,  that  these  general  laws  are  the  result  of  a 
number  of  arrangements.  The  very  operation  of  a  cause,  we 
have  seen,  implies  the  presence  of  two  or  more  bodies  in  a 
certain  relation  to  each  other  ;  but  a  general  fact  implies  more 
— it  implies  an  adjustment  of  the  causes  with  the  view  of  yield- 
ing such  general  results. 

These  truths  are  so  important  that  they  demand  some  farther 
illustration.     Conceive  a  mariner  observing,  as  his  vessel  sails 


TO  PRODUCE  GENERAL  LAWS  OR  RESULTS.  103 

along  a  difficult  coast,  the  lighthouses  which  line  it.  One,  he 
finds,  has  a  steady  white  light,  another  is  intermittent,  a  third 
flashes  once  every  five  or  ten  seconds,  and  a  fourth  is  revolving, 
and  shows  alternately  a  red  and  white  light.  For  his  special 
purposes,  the  sailor  is  satisfied  when  he  has  observed  these 
appearances  of  the  lighthouses.  He  sees,  for  instance,  a  light- 
house which  shows  alternately  a  red  and  white  light  every  two 
minutes,  and  he  ascertains,  by  inspection  of  a  nautical  almanac, 
that  it  is  planted  on  a  certain  rock.  On  all  future  occasions, 
the  very  sight  of  that  same  alternating  light  is  sufficient  to  indi- 
cate at  what  part  of  the  coast  he  is.  But  there  is  a  person  of 
an  inquiring  turn  of  mind,  or  a  mechanic  sailing  in  the  same 
vessel,  and  he  will  not  be  satisfied  with  these  mere  observations. 
Determined  to  ascertain  the  cause  of  the  evident  phenomena, 
he  would  make  inquiries  as  to  the  shape  and  structure  of  the 
lighthouse,  as  to  the  metal  and  glass,  and  the  light  and  machin- 
ery employed  in  it.  This  man  may  arrive  at  farther  knowledge 
than  the  mariner  possesses,  and  knowledge  that  may  be  useful 
for  other  purposes. 

Now,  we  have  here  a  picture  of  the  method  which  the  mind 
commonly  pursues  in  its  inquiries  into  the  works  of  God.  It 
first  observes  and  generalizes  its  observations,  as  the  mariner 
watches  the  lights  beaming  in  the  darkness,  and  groups  them 
into  the  various  lighthouses.  But  the  inquiring  spirit  will  not 
rest  satisfied  with  this.  Even  for  practical  purposes,  it  finds  it 
useful  not  only  to  know  the  general  fact,  but  also  the  cause  from 
which  it  has  sprung.  And  in  all  speculative  inquiries  as  to  the 
production  of  any  event,  it  knows  that  a  general  rule,  while  it 
may  be  eminently  useful,  is  yet  no  explanation,  and  it  seeks  for 
those  antecedent  circumstances  which  have  produced  the  result, 
and  which  will  produce  it  again. 

But  our  object  in  bringing  this  distinction  under  notice  is  to 
show  that  nature  abounds  in  orderly  facts  and  results,  which 
mankind  observe,  and  are  enabled  in  consequence  to  suit  them- 
selves to  the  world  in  which  they  dwell,  just  as  the  mariner,  by 
observing  the  regular  flashing  of  the  alternate  lights,  can  ascer- 
tain at  what  part  of  the  coast  he  is.  Our  farther,  and  indeed 
especial,  object  is  to  show  that  these  orderly  results  all  imply  a 
multiplicity  of  ingenious  arrangements,  just  as  in  the  lighthouse 
it  is  implied,  that  the  light  be  adjusted  to  the  silver  that  reflects 


104        .  SPECIAL  ADJUSTMENTS  REQUIRED 

it,  or  the  glass  that  concentrates  it,  and  so  adjusted  as  to  pro- 
duce these  regular  or  intermittent  flashes.  There  is  a  double 
adjustment  in  the  system  of  lighthouses — the  adjustment  where- 
by the  light  is  afforded,  and  the  adjustment  whereby  there  is  a 
result  according  to  rule  presented  to  the  mariner.  Now,  we 
maintain  that  nature  is  full  of  such  adjustments.  There  is  not 
only  the  adjustment  of  properties  so  as  to  produce  causes,  but 
the  adjustment  of  causes  acting  independently  of  each  other  so 
as  to  produce  uniform  effects. 

Another  illustration  may  perhaps  set  this  truth  in  a  still 
clearer  light.  The  person  who  observes  that  the  hour-hand  of 
a  watch  makes  a  complete  revolution  twice  while  the  earth 
revolves  in  its  orbit  once,  has  obtained  what  is  equivalent  to  a 
general  law  of  nature  ;  when  he  observes  that  the  minute- 
hand  makes  twelve  revolutions  while  the  hour-hand  makes  one, 
he  has  got  what  is  analogous  to  a  second  general  law  ;  and  when 
he  notices  how  the  second-hand  makes  sixty  revolutions  while 
the  minute-hand  makes  one,  he  has  arrived  at  a  third  general 
law.  As  soon  as  he  becomes  acquainted  with  these  three 
general  facts,  he  has  all  the  knowledge  required  to  enable  him 
to  make  a  practical  use  of  the  watch.  But  whoever  wishes 
to  know  the  causes  or  manner  of  production  must  inspect  the 
work  within,  when  he  will  find  that  the  regular  movement  of 
the  hands  upon  the  dial  is  the  result  of  ingeniously  contrived 
machinery.  Now,  the  general  laws  of  nature  correspond  to  these 
orderly  movements  of  the  hands,  and  a  knowledge  of  them  is 
all  that  is  needful  to  guide  us  in  the  business  of  life.  If  the 
husbandman  knows  the  time  of  the  rising -and  setting  of  that 
timepiece  which  God  has  placed  in  these  heavens,  he  can  arrange 
all  his  agricultural  operations  without  knowing  the  cosmical 
arrangements  from  which  the  movements  of  the  seasons  pro- 
ceed, without  having  it  settled  whether  the  earth  goes  round  the 
sun,  or  the  sun  goes  round  the  earth.  But  if  he  would  become 
a  philosopher,  and  determine  the  causes  of  these  to  him  so  bene- 
ficent movements,  he  must  ascertain  those  dispositions  of  sun 
and  planet  by  which  they  are  produced. 

We  can  conceive  of  a  world  in  which  there  might  be  the  opera- 
tion of  causation,  and  yet  few  or  no  general  results.  A  cause  in 
the  same  circumstances  produces  the  same  effects ;  but  in  the 
supposed  world  the  same  circumstances  might  not  recur,  or  not 


TO  PRODUCE  GENERAL  LAWS  OR  RESULTS.  105 

recur  after  any  general  rule,  and  thus  there  would  be  nothing 
but  confusion,  even  with  a  series  of  uniform  sequences.  It  re- 
quires adaptation  upon  adaptation,  the  adaptation  of  substance  to 
substance,  and  of  cause  to  cause,  to  produce  those  regular  results 
in  which  nature  abounds,  and  which,  as  we  shall  proceed  to  show 
in  the  next  section,  are  so  suited  to  the  constitution  of  man. 

We  see  how  superficial  are  the  views  of  those  who  congratu- 
late themselves  in  the  thought,  that  they  have  explained  any 
given  phenomenon  when  they  have  referred  it  to  a  law.  We 
had  occasion  to  remark  formerly,  that,  in  ascribing  an  event  to  a 
general  law,  so  far  from  explaining  its  production,  there  is  only 
brought  under  our  notice  other  objects  so  far  resembling  it,  and 
equally  with  it  demanding  explanation.  But  we  can  now  go  a 
step  farther,  and  notice  how  in  this  general  law  there  must  be  a 
number  of  adjustments  implied,  additional  to  those  involved  in 
the  production  of  a  single  effect.  When  phenomena,  falling 
out  according  to  a  law,  are  brought  before  us,  we  have  now  to 
determine  not  only  the  adjustments  which  produce  the  separate 
events,  but  also  the  adjustments  which  produce  them  according 
to  a  law.  In  referring  a  phenomenon  to  a  law,  we  are  mul- 
tiplying the  wonders  of  nature,  in  so  far  as  we  are  bringing  into 
view  not  only  other  phenomena  which  require  to  be  accounted 
for,  but  an  order  among  them  requiring  also  to  be  explained.* 

*  We  see,  now,  the  error  of  all  those  who  never  go  beyond  laws  and  develop- 
ments. M.  Comte  boasts  that  he  has  established  a  positive  philosophy,  free  from 
all  theory,  and  seems  to  think  that  science  can  never  rise  beyond  general  laws. 
But  positive  philosophy  tells  us  that  there  is  never  a  phenomenon  without  a  cause, 
never  a  general  phenomenon,  or  class  of  phenomena,  without  a  general  cause ;  and 
it  is  from  the  adjusted  relations  of  these  general  causes,  that  we  ascend,  by  means 
of  the  clearest  principles  of  a  positive  philosophy,  to  the  belief  in  an  Intelligence 
presiding  over  the  universe.  Mr.  J.  S.  Mill  acknowledges  the  existence  of  causes, 
but  regards  them  as  mere  laws  of  succession,  without  discovering  any  potency  in 
the  cause  to  produce  its  effect.  Hence  his  error  in  supposing  that  there  can  be 
no  such  thing  as  explanation.  (See  Book  iii.  chap,  xii.)  We  agree  with  him  in 
thinking  that  when  we  refer  a  phenomenon  to  a  law,  we  do  not  explain  it,  but 
when  we  discover  a  cause  we  have  found  an  explanation  of  its  occurrence.  True, 
this  cause  may  also  have  a  cause,  but  as  we  trace  up  causes  in  this  way  we  come 
at  last  to  a  power,  which  accounts  for  all  causes  and  effects.  We  arc  glad  to  find 
Humboldt  declaring,  (Cosmos,  Vol.  iii.  p.  7,  Otte's  translation,)  that  the  highest, 
though  more  rarely  attained  aim  of  all  natural  inquiry,  is  the  discovery  of  causal 
connexion.  It  is  surely  to  be  regretted  that  one,  who  has  swept  as  on  angel's 
wings  through  physical  creation,  should  not  have  delighted  to  make  reference  to 
the  presence  and  wisdom  of  the  Creator. 


106 


SPECIAL  ADJUSTMENTS  REQUIRED 


There  are  in  nature  no  other  inherent  powers  than  those  which 
reside  in  the  separate  substances,  and  which  we  call  their  pro- 
perties. It  appears  to  us  that  the  creation  of  the  substances,  the 
imparting  to  them  of  their  properties,  and  their  mutual  arrange- 
ments, all  proceed  from  the  same  Divine  hand.  But  though  it 
were  admitted,  for  the  sake  of  argument,  that  these  properties 
in  themselves  furnished  no  indication  of  a  Creator,  still  we  could 
have  abundant  evidence  of  the  existence  of  a  designing;  mind  in 
the  adjustment  of  them,  so  as  to  admit  of  their  beneficial  opera- 
tion, and  in  the  ingenious  and  complex  arrangements  requisite 
in  order  to  events  falling  out  in  that  orderly  manner  which  we 
call  general  laws.  So  far  from  general  laws  being  able,  as 
superficial  thinkers  imagine,  to  produce  the  beautiful  adapta- 
tions ivhich  are  so  numerous  in  nature,  they  are  themselves  the 
results  of  nicely  balanced  and  skilful  adjustments.  So  far  from 
being  simple,  they  are  the  product  of  many  arrangements  ;  just 
as  the  hum  which  comes  from  a  city,  and  which  may  seem  a 
simple  sound,  is  the  joint  effect  of  many  blended  voices  ;  just  as 
the  musical  note  is  the  effect  of  numerous  vibrations ;  just  as 
the  curious  circular  atoll-reefs  met  with  in  the  South  Seas  are 
the  product  of  millions  of  insects.  So  far  from  being  independent 
principles,  they  are  dependent  on  many  other  principles.  They 
are  not  agencies,  but  ends  contemplated  by  Him  who  adjusted 
the  physical  agencies  which  produced  them.  As  such  they  be- 
come the  rules  of  God's  house — the  laws  of  his  kingdom  ;  and 
wherever  we  see  such  laws,  there  we  see  the  certain  traces  of  a 
Lawgiver* 

We  see,  too,  that  general  laws  have  no  necessary  existence. 
Properties  are  permanent  in  the  substance,  and  can  only  be 
destroyed  with  the  destruction  of  the  substance.  Causes  must 
act  when  needful  arrangements  are  provided.  But  general  laws 
may  change  with  changing  circumstances.  Without  any  change 
of  the  bodies  in  the  universe,  without  any  change  in  their  pro- 
perties, there  might  be  a  complete  change — as  by  the  shifting  of 
the  scenery  in  a  theatre — in  the  general  laws  or  order  of  nature. 

*  If  these  views  are  correct,  the  principle  laid  down  by  Dr.  Chalmers  is  not  a 
distinction  between  the  laws  of  matter  and  the  collocations  of  matter,  but  a  distinc- 
tion between  the  properties  of  matter,  and  the  adjustments  required  in  order  to 
their  action.  We  see,  farther,  that  the  principle  is  so  extensive  in  its  application, 
that  general  laws,  in  the  proper  sense  of  the  term,  are  the  result  of  collocations  or 
adjustments  of  some  kind. 


TO  PRODUCE  GENERAL  LAWS  OR  RESULTS.  107 

Without  creating  one  new  material  substance,  or  destroying  any 
of  the  existing  ones,  God  may  accomplish  that  change — rather 
than  destruction,  to  which  the  author  of  the  Epistle  to  the 
Hebrews  points,  as  the  precursor  of  the  new  heavens  and  new 
earth — "  As  a  vesture  shalt  thou  fold  them  up,  and  they  shall 
be  changed." 

Illustrative  Note  (b.)— LAWS  OF  PHENOMENA,  CAUSES  OF  PHENOMENA, 
CONDITIONS  OF  THE  OPERATION  OF  CAUSES. 

The  views  partially  exhibited  in  the  test  are  fitted,  if  carried  out,  to  furnish,  in 
our  apprehension,  some  assistance  in  introducing  order  into  a  topic  which  is  still 
somewhat  confused — the  logic  of  physical  investigation.  We  must  not  be  tempted 
to  enter  far  into  a  subject  which  we  feel  ourselves  incapacitated  to  grapple  with 
in  all  its  extent.  The  few  observations  which  we  have  to  offer  may  be  best  de- 
livered in  the  shape  of  a  brief  review  of  the  two  learned  and  philosophical  works 
of  Dr.  Whewell  on  the  History  and  Philosophy  of  the  Inductive  Sciences. 

This  author,  throughout  these  works,  has  made  a  frequent  and  profitable  use  of 
the  distinction  between  the  inquiry  into  the  laics  of  phenomena  and  the  causes  of 
phenomena.  "  Inductive  truths  are  of  two  kinds — laws  of  phenomena,  and  theories 
of  causes.  It  is  necessary  to  begin  in  every  science  with  the  laws  of  phenomena, 
but  it  is  impossible  that  we  should  be  satisfied  to  stop  short  of  a  theory  of  causes. 
In  physical  astronomy,  physical  optics,  geology,  and  other  sciences,  we  have 
instances  showing  that  we  can  make  a  great  advance  in  inquiries  after  the  true 
theories  of  causes."* 

In  illustrating  this  remark,  he  states,  that  in  "  their  first  attempts  men  discovered 
an  order  which  the  phenomena  follow,  rules  which  they  obey ;  but  they  did  not 
come  in  sight  of  the  powers  by  which  these  rules  are  determined— the  causes  of 
which  this  order  is  the  effect.  Thus,  for  example,  tbey  found  that  many  of  the 
celestial  motions  took  place,  as  if  the  sun  and  stars  were  carried  round  by  the 
revolution  of  certain  celestial  spheres ;  but  what  causes  kept  these  spheres  in 
constant  motion  they  were  never  able  to  explain.  In  like  manner,  in  modern 
times,  Kepler  discovered  that  the  planets  describe  ellipses  before  Newton  explained 
why  they  select  this  particular  course,  and  describe  it  in  a  particular  manner. 
The  laws  of  reflection,  refraction,  dispersion,  and  other  properties  of  light,  have 
long  been  known ;  the  causes  of  these  laws  are  at  present  under  discussion." 
"Hence  the  larger  part  of  our  knowledge  of  nature,  at  least  of  the  certain  portion 
of  it,  consists  of  the  knowledge  of  the  laws  of  phenomena.  In  astronomy,  indeed, 
besides  knowing  the  rules  which  guide  the  appearances,  and  resolving  them  into 
the  real  motions  from  which  they  arise,  we  can  refer  these  motions  to  the  forces 
which  produce  them.  In  optics,  we  have  become  acquainted  with  a  vast  number 
of  laws,  by  which  varied  and  beautiful  phenomena  are  governed ;  and  perhaps 
we  may  assume,  since  the  evidence  of  the  undulatory  theory  has  bet-n  so  fully 
developed,  that  we  know  also  the  causes  of  the  phenomena.  Dut  in  a  large  class 
of  sciences,  while  we  have  learned  many  laws  of  phenomena,  the  causes  by  which 
these  are  produced  are  still  unknown  or  disputed.  Are  we  to  ascribe  to  the  opera- 
tion of  a  fluid  or  fluids — and  if  so,  in  what  manner — the  facts  of  heat,  magnetism, 
electricity,  galvanism  ? — what  are  the  forces  by  which  the  elements  of  chemical 
*  Philosophy  of  Inductive  Sciences,  2d  edit.  vol.  ii.    Aph.  concerning  science,  24. 


108  ILLUSTRATIVE  NOTE. 

compounds  are  held  together  ?— what  are  the  forces  of  a  higher  order,  as  we  can- 
not help  believing,  by  which  the  course  of  vital  action  in  organized  bodies  is  kept 
up  ?  In  these  and  other  cases,  we  have  extensive  departments  of  science,  but  we 
are  as  yet  unable  to  trace  the  effects  to  their  causes  ;  and  our  science,  so  far  as  it 
is  positive  and  certain,  consists  entirely  of  the  laws  of  phenomena."* 

In  his  work  on  the  History  of  the  Inductive  Sciences,  Whewell  shows  how  all  the 
sciences  have  been  following  the  order  now  pointed  out.  First,  in  every  science 
there  is  a  preparatory  period,  or  the  prelude  of  discovery,  in  which  inquirers  are 
busily  employed  in  discovering  the  laws  of  phenomena.  Then,  secondly,  there  is 
the  period  of  the  discovery  itself.  Thirdly,  there  is  the  period  of  deduction  in 
which  the  law  or  cause  is  verified,  and  carried  out  to  the  explanation  of  existing 
phenomena.  Among  the  earliest  discoveries  in  astronomy  may  be  reckoned  the 
formation  of  the  notion  of  the  year,  and  the  grouping  of  the  heavens  into  con- 
stellations. It  was  ascertained  by  the  Chaldees  that,  after  a  certain  period  of  years, 
similar  sets  of  eclipses  return.  The  discovery  of  such  laws  formed  the  prelude  to 
the  period  of  Hipparchus.  Hipparchus  resolved  these  phenomena  into  higher  laws, 
of  which  epicycles  and  eccentrics  were  the  best  expression.  Coming  down  to 
modern  times,  we  find,  first,  certain  useful  observations  as  a  prelude,  then  the  dis- 
covery of  the  laws  of  Kepler,  and  a  sequel  to  this  discovery  in  the  application  of 
these  laws  to  the  planets  and  moon.  The  laws  of  Kepler,  and  the  laws  of  motion 
as  established  by  Galileo,  were  the  prelude  to  the  discovery  of  Newton,  which  dis- 
covery has  a  train  of  verification  reaching  down  to  the  present  day.  Whewell 
endeavours  to  trace  the  same  order  in  what  he  calls  the  secondary  mechanical 
sciences.  Thus,  in  optics  we  have  a  period  of  prelude,  during  which  the  laws  of 
phenomena  were  carefully  observed,  and  as  an  example,  he  gives  Sir  D.  Brewster's 
rule  for  the  polarizing  angle  of  different  bodies,  that  rule  being  that  the  index  of 
refraction  is  the  tangent  of  the  angle  of  polarization.  Such  laws  formed  the 
preparation  to  the  discovery  of  the  undulatory  theory,  (supposed  by  Whewell  to  be 
the  true  one,  (as  established  by  Young  and  Fresnel,  and  now  being  corrected  and 
verified.  In  the  science  of  heat,  inquirers  have  in  time  past  been  busily  employed 
in  collecting  laws  of  phenomena  in  regard  to  conduction,  radiation,  polarization, 
which  it  is  hoped  may  speedily  issue  in  the  true  theory.  In  chemistry,  and  the 
sciences  which  treat  of  electricity,  magnetism,  and  galvanism,  the  object  sought  is 
to  discover  laws  of  phenomena.  As  an  example,  we  have  the  law  of  definite  pro- 
portions as  developed  by  Dalton,  and  which  may  be  regarded  as  consisting  of 
three  parts  :  that  elements  combine  in  definite  proportions,  that  these  determining 
proportions  operate  reciprocally,  and  that  when  between  the  same  elements  several 
combining  proportions  occur,  they  are  related  as  multiples.  The  singular  laws 
detected  by  Faraday  and  others  in  electricity  and  magnetism  seem  to  have  brought 
us  to  the  very  verge  of  some  brilliant  discovery  in  these  departments  of  nature. 

Such  is  the  extensive  induction  of  Whewell  in  reference  to  the  development  of 
scientific  inquiry.  It  furnishes,  we  conceive,  a  striking  illustration  and  confirma- 
tion of  the  views  advanced  in  the  text.  And,  if  we  do  not  mistake,  the  views  now 
set  forth  in  these  sections  serve  to  give  an  explanation  of  the  progression  which 
the  able  historian  of  philosophy  has  so  well  described.  We  are  now  in  circum- 
stances to  apply  the  distinction  of  which  Whewell  makes  such  profitable  use  to 
his  own  researches,  and  to  furnish,  if  we  mistake  not,  the  causes  of  those  laws  of 
phenomena  which  he  has  so  skilfully  traced  in  the  history  of  the  inductive  sciences. 

Let  us  take  along  with  us  these  three  general  truths — First,  that  God  has  so 
arranged  the  universe  that  general  results  or  facts  everywhere  fall  under  our 

*  VoL  II.  pp.  95,  86. 


LAWS  AND  CAUSES  OF  PHENOMENA.  109 

notice  ;  Secondly,  that  these  general  results  proceed  from  causes  ;  and,  Thirdly, 
that  these  causes  require  assorted  adjustments  as  the  condition  of  their  operation. 
Take  these  three  general  facts,  and  apply  them  to  the  subject  before  us,  and  they 
will  at  once  explain  the  course  -which  Inductive  Science  has  run. 

(1.)  Nature  is  full  of  general  facts  or  phenomena.  Many  of  these  general  facts 
or  results  are  of  a  very  obvious  nature,  and  are  intended  to  be  noticed  by  all  who 
take  the  trouble  of  exercising  their  minds  and  senses.  Thus  the  alternation  of 
day  and  night  and  of  the  seasons,  and  the  periods  of  the  moon,  would  be  early  dis- 
covered by  all.  We  can  conceive  that  one  of  the  first  efforts  of  true  science  would 
consist  in  giving  precision  to  these  observations  ;  in  determining,  for  instance,  the 
true  length  of  the  year  and  the  lunar  month.  The  more  striking  phenomena  of 
the  heavens,  such  as  eclipses,  would  then  come  to  be  observed,  till  by  degrees,  and 
as  society  advanced,  certain  persons  would  be  induced  to  pursue  science  for  its 
own  sake,  and  independently  altogether  of  the  immediate  practical  good  derived 
from  it,  or  the  fame  accruing  to  those  who  were  able  to  predict  some  of  the  more 
startling  appearances  of  the  heavenly  bodies.  General  observations  in  regard  to 
the  sun  and  moon's  apparent  motion  in  the  sidereal  heavens  would  come  to  be 
multiplied,  and  handed  down  as  a  precious  legacy  to  future  generations.  The 
fertility  of  mind  and  the  indefatigable  perseverance  of  Kepler  conducted  at  last  to 
the  discovery  of  the  laws  which  bear  his  name,  and  these,  with  the  mechanical 
discoveries  of  Galileo,  enabled  Newton  to  rise  to  the  discovery  of  the  law  of  gravi- 
tation. Now,  all  along  this  lengthened  line,  we  have  merely  the  discovery  of 
interesting  and  instructive  general  results,  till  Newton  arrives  at  a  cause,  in  a  pro- 
perty inherent,  as  far  as  we  can  see,  in  all  masses  of  matter.  Though  it  should 
be  discovered  that  this  property  is  the  result  of  other  properties  of  matter,  (as  from 
the  mutual  repulsion  of  all  particles  of  matter,  combined  with  the  somewhat 
greater  mutual  attraction  of  matter  and  an  all-pervading  electric  fluid,)  still  as 
gravitation  is  a  property  of  all  masses  of  matter,  we  are  not  the  less  to  regard 
Newton  as  having  ascended  to  the  discovery  of  a  cause.     ( 

(2.)  It  appears,  then,  that  God  has  so  constituted  this  world,  that  mankind  can 
observe  many  interesting  laws  of  great  speculative  and  practical  value,  though  they 
have  no  conception  whatever  of  their  causes.  But  still  these  general  phenomena — 
being  merely  particular  phenomena  resembling  each  other  in  certain  respects — do  all 
proceed  from  causes.  We  now  know,  for  example,  that  all  those  general  laws  of 
the  movements  of  the  heavenly  bodies  which  were  observed  with  such  interest  by 
the  ancient  astronomers,  and  which  are  still  watched  by  the  husbandman  and  shep- 
herd, proceed  from  the  property  of  gravitation,  as  connected  with  the  collocation 
of  the  bodies  which  attract  each  other.  These  laws  in  themselves  were  fitted  to 
excite  an  intense  interest  in  the  human  mind,  and  the  observation  of  them  served 
most  important  practical  purposes;  and  they  were  so  obvious,  at  least  some  of 
them,  that  the  mind  could  arrive  at  a  knowledge  of  them  without  having  so  much 
as  a  glimpse  of  their  cause.  But  still  there  was  an  anxiety  all  along  to  discover 
the  cause  of  which  they  were  the  effects  ;  and  the  discovery  of  Newton  is  hailed  as 
the  greatest  contribution  ever  made  to  astronomy.  And  let  it  be  observed,  that 
it  was  the  discovery  of  these  laws  of  phenomena  that  enabled  Newton  to  find  out 
the  cause  of  the  phenomena.  This  is  easily  explained.  The  cause  is  so  adjusted 
as  to  produce  these  general  phenomena,  which  become  in  consequence  the  most 
expressive  indication  of  the  nature  of  that  cause. 

While  the  learned  author  whose  works  we  are  reviewing  has  seen  very  clearly 
the  distinction  between  the  laws  of  phenomena  and  the  causes  of  phenomena,  yet  he 
has  not  observed,  or  at  least  he  has  not  pointed  out,  the  connexion  which  subsists 


110  ILLUSTRATIVE  NOTE. 

between  them.  The  laws  of  phenomena  proceed  from  causes,  and  causes  assorted 
so  as  to  produce  these  laws,  and  so  they  are  the  most  direct  and  eifectual  means  of 
enabling  us  to  trace  the  causes.  It  was  the  steady  contemplation  of  the  laws  of 
phenomena  discovered  by  Kepler  which  furnished  Xewton  with  the  data  on  which 
he  proceeded,  in  forming  a  correct  theory  of  the  causes  of  the  visible  motions  of 
the  planetary  bodies.  We  thus  perceive,  that  as  the  discovery  of  the  laws  of 
phenomena  generally  precedes  the  discovery  of  causes,  so  the  former  is  the  most 
certain  means  of  reaching  the  latter.  We  can  account  in  this  manner  for  the 
nature  of  that  progress  which  Whewell  has  traced  so  beautifully  in  the  develop- 
ment of  science. 

(3.)  In  doing  so,  however,  we  must  take  into  account  the  third  general  truth 
which  we  have  enunciated — that  causes  require  adjustments  as  the  condition  of 
their  operation.  There  is  something  more  in  the  true  cause  of  the  heavenly  motions 
than  the  mere  property  of  gravitation  ;  there  are  adjusted  relations  of  space  and 
time.  These  had  to  be  taken  into  account  by  Newton  before  he  could  establish 
his  doctrine  of  universal  gravitation.  The  laws  of  Kepler  related  to  the  adjust- 
ments of  time  and  space — they  related  to  the  orbit  of  the  planets,  and  the  times  of 
the  planets'  revolutions  ;  and  were  thus  the  means  of  enabling  the  comprehensive 
mind  of  Newton  to  grasp  the  whole  complex  cause.  It  is  a  curious  circumstance, 
and  a  proof  of  the  necessity  of  taking  such  relations  into  account,  that  an  errone- 
ous calculation  of  the  relative  distance  of  the  earth's  surface  and  of  the  moon  from 
the  earth's  centre  led  Newton  for  a  time  to  lay  aside  his  theory.  The  discovery 
of  Newton  was  made  through  a  steady  apprehension  of  the  distances  of  the  heavenly 
bodies,  the  times  of  their  revolutions,  and  the  laws  of  force  and  motion,  being  the 
conditions  necessary  for  the  operation  of  the  cause. 

By  not  taking  into  view  the  general  truth  now  referred  to,  Whewell,  as  it  appears 
to  us,  has  fallen  into  a  grievous  mistake.  He  speaks  of  the  philosopher's  ideas  of 
space  and  time  as  giving  coherency  to  the  phenomena  which  he  observes,  and 
everywhere  talks  of  these  ideas  superinducing  upon  nature  something  which  does 
not  actually  exist.  (See  Aph.  XI.)  Now,  the  correct  expression  seems  to  us 
rather  to  be,  that  those  who  possess  adequate  and  steady  conceptions  of  space  and 
time  are  enabled  to  discover  the  relations  of  space  and  time  which  are  to  be  found 
in  the  works  of  nature,  and  which  are  so  necessary  to  their  operation.  The  mind, 
as  Whewell  shows,  must  be  active  in  making  scientific  discoveries,  or  even  in 
apprehending  scientific  facts  ;  but  its  activity  consists,  not  in  adding  to  pheno- 
mena relations  which  do  not  exist  in  nature,  but  in  apprehending,  by  means  of 
the  active  intellectual  faculties,  the  relations  which  are  needful  in  order  to  the 
beneficial  action  of  the  works  of  God. 

It  is  because  the  relations  of  space  and  time  are  involved  as  conditions  in  the 
operation  of  universal  gravitation,  that  the  science  which  has  to  do  with  space  and 
time  (we  mean  the  mathematics)  furnishes  such  aid  in  astronomy.  Hence,  too, 
the  necessity  on  the  part  of  all  who  would  successfully  prosecute  astronomy,  of 
clear  ideas  of  space  and  time.  This  does  not  arise,  as  Whewell  seems  to  think, 
from  the  circumstance  of  these  ideas  being  needful  to  superinduce  upon  the  facts 
which  astronomy  presents  something  which  has  no  reality,  but  from  the  more 
obvious  circumstance  that  these  ideas  are  necessary  in  order  to  enable  us  to  dis- 
cover the  relations  that  actually  exist. 

On  the  supposition  that  the  undulatory  theory  of  light  is  the  correct  one,  wc 
may  observe  the  same  three  general  truths,  and  by  them  explain  the  progress 
made  in  this  department  of  science.  These  undulations  being  regular  in  a  homo- 
geneous ether,  must  produce  certain  general  results  which  were  noticed  in  the  first 


LAWS  AND  CAUSES  OF  PHENOMENA.  Ill 

stages  of  inquiry  ;  and  these  general  phenomena  at  length  conducted  Young  and 
Fresnel  to  the  establishment  (it  is  supposed)  of  the  undulatory  theory.  They  did 
so,  because  they  resulted  from  the  operation  of  the  cause  to  the  discovery  of  which 
they  thus  led.  And  let  it  be  observed,  that  this  cause  implies  the  adjustment  of 
the  undulations  and  the  ethereal  fluid  in  which  they  take  place.  Some  move  faster 
than  others ;  and  the  more  rapid,  in  overtaking  the  others,  produce,  it  is  supposed, 
what  are  called  interferences.  Then  these  vibrations,  in  order  to  produce  the 
actual  results,  must  be  transverse  vibrations.  All  these  are  skilful  adjustments, 
without  which  the  end  could  not  be  accomplished — the  production  of  vision. 
Hence  the  need  of  clear  and  comprehensive  ideas  of  force  and  motion  and  place  on 
the  part  of  all  who  would  prosecute  this  science ;  and  this,  not  as  Whewell  would  say, 
because  every  discovery  consists  in  the  application  of  a  correlative  idea  to  existing 
facts,  but  because  the  facts  have  a  peculiar  relation  in  respect  of  space  and  time 
and  force,  which  it  is  the  business  of  the  observer  to  display,  and  of  the  philoso- 
pher to  resolve  into  its  cause. 

In  the  sciences  not  mechanical,  such  as  chemistry,  laws  of  phenomena  must  all 
proceed  from  a  similar  adjustment  of  substances  to  each  other  in  regard  to  their 
quantity  and  their  properties.  It  is  always  to  be  borne  in  mind,  that  the  laws 
which  come  under  our  notice  in  chemistry  are  those  of  chemical  affinity,  and  not 
of  mechanical  force.  All  existing  compound  bodies  result  from  the  adjustment  of 
the  particles  of  matter,  in  respect  of  their  rules  of  elective  affinity.  As  all  actual 
phenomena  are  complex,  the  resolution  of  them  into  their  elements  requires  steady 
apprehensions  of  that  on  which  their  present  nature  depends,  and  in  particular  on 
the  laws  of  elective  affinity  and  on  quantity,  (which  is  measured  by  weight;)  and 
this,  not  because  laws  of  phenomena  are  ideas  superinduced  upon  facts,  but  because 
they  are  the  result  of  the  relations  which  the  facts  bear  one  to  another. 

SECT.  IV. — WISDOM  DISPLAYED   IN  THE  PREVALENCE    OF   GENERAL 
LAWS  AND  OBSERVABLE  ORDER  IN  THE  WORLD. 

All  the  material  objects  on  our  earth  seem  to  be  composed  of 
rather  more  than  sixty  elements.  We  think  that  we  can  dis- 
cover the  wisdom  of  God  in  creating,  as  the  elements  out  of  which 
existing  things  are  formed,  substances  sufficiently  numerous  to 
produce  variety,  but  not  so  numerous  as  to  create  confusion.  The 
human  mind  is  so  formed,  that  it  delights  in  mingled  sameness 
and  -diversity  ;  and  we  are  furnished  with  as  much  variety  as  the 
finite  capacity  of  man  can  observe,  in  the  unnumbered  com- 
pounds formed  out  of  the  simple  ingredients  ;  while,  on  the 
other  hand,  the  mind  is  kept  from  bewilderment  by  its  being 
enabled  constantly  to  fall  back  upon  comparatively  few  principles. 
In  the  actually  existing  forms  and  colours,  the  diversified  pro- 
perties and  incessant  changes  of  the  physical  world,  we  have 
sufficient  variety  and  novelty  to  interest  the  curiosity  and  delight 
the  imagination  ;  we  have  flowers  of  every  shape  and  hue,  lovely 
landscapes  of  every  diversified  extent  and  character,  and  the  ex- 


112  WISDOM  DISPLAYED  IN  THE 

pressions  of  beauty  in  the  human  form  and  countenance ;  while 
the  understanding  feels  itself  secure,  and  science  has  a  solid 
resting-place,  in  falling  back  on  the  few  elements  to  which  all 
things  can  be  reduced. 

But  it  is  in  that  ordinance  of  heaven,  according  to  which  law 
universally  prevails,  that  we  discover  most  clearly  the  wisdom  of 
God.  In  particular,  we  may  observe  how  admirably  such  a 
system  is  adapted  to  the  nature  and  constitution  of  the  human 
mind. 

Many  piously  disposed  minds,  we  are  aware,  are  inclined  to  be 
jealous  of  the  discovery  of  law  in  the  universe.  Some  of  the 
ancient  philosophers  of  Greece  were  suspected  of  Atheism  and 
subjected  to  persecution,  because  they  pointed  out  the  natural 
causes  of  phenomena  which  the  vulgar  ascribed  to  special  miracle. 
There  is  still  a  lingering  suspicion  among  many,  of  the  extent 
to  which  modern  research  is  pushing  the  reign  of  law.  They 
feel  as  if  science  was  setting  itself  up  as  a  rival  to  Deity,  and 
attempting  to  drive  God  from  one  part  of  his  dominions  after 
another,  in  much  the  same  way  as  Home  extended  itself  in 
ancient  times,  making  conquest  upon  conquest,  always  under  a 
plausible  pretext,  and  in  the  hope  that  at  last  it  might  reign 
alone.  It  will  serve  to  remove  this  mistake,  (for  such  we  reckon 
it,)  if  it  can  be  shown  that  there  is  admirable  wisdom  displayed 
by  the  Divine  Being  in  the  selection  of  this  particular  mode  of 
government. 

The  wisdom  of  this  method  appears  in  its  exact  adaptation  to 
the  nature  of  man.  Had  man  been  differently  constituted,  it  is 
conceivable  that  a  different  system  might  have  been  preferable. 
It  is  possible,  or  probable,  that  somewhere  in  the  universe  there 
may  be  a  world  in  which  there  is  no  second  cause  of  the  events 
that  are  occurring — no  other  cause  but  the  direct  exercise  of 
God's  will.  But  if  there  be  such  a  state  of  things,  as  seems  very 
possible,  all  the  creatures  above  those  governed  by  mere  instinct 
— in  short,  all  intelligent  being — must  be  differently  constituted 
from  man,  and  acquire  knowledge  by  some  immediate  insight 
into  the  Divine  mind  or  purposes.  In  such  a  world,  man  with 
his  present  nature  would  feel  himself  to  be  a  stranger,  a  wanderer, 
and  an  outcast,  unsnited  to  all  around,  and  all  around  unsuited 
to  him. 

Nearly  all  deep  thinkers  acknowledge  that  there  is  an  inward 


PREVALENCE  OF  GENERAL  LAWS.  113 

principle  which  leads  us  on  the  discovery  of  an  effect,  to  rise  up 
to  a  belief  in  a  cause,  and  upon  observing  the  cause,  to  anticipate 
the  effect ;  and  that  this  principle  is  not  the  result  of  experience, 
but  rather  the  foundation  on  which  we  proceed  in  gathering 
experience.  Now,  external  nature  is  in  exact  conformity  to  this 
inward  principle.  What  we  are  led  by  our  intuitions  to  expect, 
we  find  to  be  actually  realized.  Our  inward  belief  is  ever  met 
by  a  corresponding  connexion  in  the  actual  succession  of  events. 
Without  such  a  correspondence,  man  would  wander  for  ever  in 
a  bewildering  maze,  finding  nothing  but  contradictions,  and  at 
war  with  the  whole  of  creation* 

But  there  is  a  farther  adaptation  between  the  external  and 
internal  world.  It  is  conceivable  that  every  event  might  have 
fallen  out  according  to  the  relation  between  cause  and  effect, 
without  there  being  any  sequences  in  nature  coming  under  human 
inspection.  The  causes  of  the  effects  in  nature  might  all  have 
been  supernatural,  and  consisted  in  the  immediate  volitions  of 
Deity,  or  of  angelic  beings,  or  in  physical  powers  beyond  the 
reach  of  man's  observation.  In  such  a  system,  there  would  have 
been  nothing  contrary  to  man's  intuitive  principles,  just  as  we 
hold  that  there  is  nothing  inconsistent  with  them  in  the  miracles 
recorded  in  Scripture.  But  as  man  is  at  present  constituted,  he 
could  not  in  such  a  state  of  things  have  derived  any  knowledge 
from  experience.  The  past  could  have  thrown  no  light  upon  the 
future,  nor  could  any  steps  have  been  taken  for  the  attainment 
of  good  or  the  prevention  of  evil. 

Man  is  placed  in  a  system  of  things,  in  which  all  the  changes 
produced  in  the  objects  that  surround  him  occur  according  to  a 
relation  constituted  among  the  substances  changed.  In  using 
this  language,  we  mean  to  announce  something  more  than  the 
axiom,  that  every  effect  has  a  cause.  To  this  principle  there 
can  be  no  exceptions,  at  any  time  or  place.  The  miraculous 
interpositions  recorded  in  Scripture  are  not  inconsistent  with 
this  fundamental  axiom,  for  they  are  the  effects  of  the  will  of 
God  as  the  cause.  But  in  speaking  of  the  visible  universe,  as 
all  connected  together  by  the  relation  of  cause  and  effect,  we 
enunciate  the  farther  truth,  that  every  existing  phenomenon 
(the  miracles  of  Scripture  being  always  regarded  as  exceptions, 

*  See  some  remarks  ou  the  Internal  Principle  of  Causation,  in  Appen- 
dix IV. 

H 


114  WISDOM  DISPLAYED  IN  THE 

and  they  serve  their  purpose  just  because  they  are  exceptions) 
has  a  cause  in  some  other  phenomenon  or  created  object.*  God 
has  so  constituted  this  world,  that  every  effect  has  not  only  a 
primary  cause  in  the  will  of  God,  but  an  instrumental  cause  in 
the  substances  which  God  has  created  and  placed  in  the  same 
mundane  system.  Now,  all  this  is  in  admirable  adaptation  to 
the  nature  of  man,  who  attains  to  knowledge  and  power  by 
means  of  the  circumstance,  that  all  things  are  happening  accord- 
ing to  an  order  which  he  can  observe,  and  of  which  he  can  take 
advantage  in  all  his  operations. 

The  adaptation  of  material  nature  to  man's  constitution  is 
thus  seen,  first,  in  the  circumstance  that  every  event  has  a 
cause  ;  and,  secondly,  in  the  circumstance  that  it  has  a  natural 
cause.  But  there  is  a  third  class  of  adaptations  which  strike  the 
mind  still  more  impressively.  We  refer  to  those  exhibited  by 
the  general  laws  or  results  which  come  under  our  notice  every- 
where, and  which  are  the  production,  as  we  have  seen,  of  causes 
ingeniously  adjusted  to  each  other.  The  agents  of  nature  are 
so  arranged  into  a  system,  or  rather  a  system  of  systems,  that 
events  fall  out  in  an  orderly  manner.  The  seasons  roll  on,  for 
instance,  and  with  them  their  several  characteristics — the  bud 
and  promise  of  spring,  the  full-blown  beauty  of  summer,  and 
the  fruitful  riches  of  autumn,  all  terminating  in  the  gloomy 
night  of  winter,  in  which  nature  rests  and  prepares  for  a  new 
exertion — and  this,  not  because  the  phenomena  proceed  from 
one  isolated  cause,  but  because  a  vast  variety  of  independent 
agents  are  made  to  conspire  for  the  production  of  one  end. 
These  general  laws  are  the  grand  means  of  enabling  us  to  anti- 
cipate the  future,  and  to  take  steps  for  the  accomplishment  of 
our  purposes. 

Had  there  been  no  common  points  of  resemblance  between 
the  innumerable  objects  met  with  in  nature,  man  must  have 
continued  in  a  state  of  helpless  ignorance.  He  would  have  felt 
in  much  the  same  way  as  when  carried  into  a  large  wareroom 

*  The  peculiarity  of  a  miracle  is,  that  it  has  not  a  cause  in  the  natural  powers 
operating  in  the  Cosmos.  Though  not  falling  in  with  the  "  uniformity  of  nature," 
— which  is  by  no  means  an  ultimate  principle,  or  a  principle  without  exception, 
(there  is,  e.g.,  the  creation  of  new  species  of  plants  and  animals  as  revealed  by 
geology) — it  is  by  no  means  inconsistent  with  what  is  truly  the  ultimate  and 
intuitive  principle,  that  "  every  effect  has  a  cause  :"  for  it  has  an  adequate  cause 
in  the  power  of  God. 


PEE  VALENCE  OF  GENERAL  LAWS.  115 

where  all  the  articles  are  in  confusion,  or  rather  where  every 
article  is  incapable,  even  by  the  greatest  pains,  of  being  arranged 
with  any  other.  But  we  find  nature,  instead,  full  of  an  order 
which  can  be  observed  by  man.  By  means  of  common  points 
of  resemblance,  the  objects  can  be  grouped  and  classified  for  the 
assistance  of  the  memory  and  for  the  practical  purposes  of  ex- 
perience. Here,  again,  let  us  remark  the  wonderful  adaptation 
of  mind  to  matter.  The  human  mind  is  so  constituted  as  to  be 
able  and  disposed  to  observe  relations,  and  especially  resem- 
blances, and  so  to  group  objects  into  classes  by  means  of  these 
relations.  There  is  thus,  on  the  one  hand,  a  tendency  in  the 
human  mind  to  arrange  and  classify  ;  and,  on  the  other  hand, 
the  objects  around  us  have  multiplied  relations  one  towards 
another,  affording  befitting  exercise  for  the  intellectual  faculty, 
and  enabling  it  to  dispose  all  individual  substances  into  a  series 
of  groups,  and  to  connect  all  nature  in  one  sublime  system.  It 
may  be  interesting  to  trace  this  ordination  and  subordination, 
and  to  observe  how  it  prevails  most  in  those  natural  objects 
with  which  man  is  most  intimately  connected,  and  on  which  his 
welfare  specially  depends. 

We  set  out  with  the  remark,  that  Order  proceeds  from 
Intelligence  and  is  suited  to  Intelligence.  The  illustrations 
of  this  principle  might,  if  we  do  not  mistake,  furnish  an  argu- 
ment in  favour  of  the  existence  of  a  Supreme  Intelligence,  of  a 
different  kind  from  that  derived  from  the  mere  adaptation  of 
parts. 

We  enter  a  well-arranged  shop,  and  we  find  all  the  articles  in 
order.  It  is  a  stationer's  shop,  and  we  find  the  paper  assorted 
in  slips,  each  containing  a  certain  number  of  sheets,  and  these 
again  into  bundles,  each  containing  a  known  quantity  of  slips. 
It  is  an  illustration  of  order  in  respect  of  Number.  In  the  same 
shop  there  are  illustrations  of  order  in  respect  of  Form  or 
Figure  ;  for  the  sheets  placed  together  have  all  the  same  shape. 
Or,  we  enter  a  tea  or  a  sugar  warehouse,  and  find  all  the  chests 
or  barrels  containing  the  same  quantity  of  the  article  by  weight 
or  measure.  Or,  we  inspect  a  skilfully  cultivated  farm,  and  find 
all  the  ridges  of  the  same  width  and  of  a  similar  slope.  In  the 
regular  methods  prescribed  to  his  workmen  by  every  intelligent 
master,  we  observe  an  order  in  respect  of  Time.  These  are 
illustrations  of  Order  which  cannot  proceed  from  chance  or 


116  WISDOM  DISPLAYED  IN  THE 

caprice,  but  from  intelligence.  And  as  they  proceed  from  intel- 
ligence, they  are  also  suited  to  intelligence.  Without  such  an 
order  man  would  become  bewildered  in  very  proportion  to  the 
profusion  of  his  possessions. 

There  are  examples  of  a  still  higher  order  in  the  works  of 
man.  Man  has  not  only  a  love  of  order  for  the  sake  of  its 
utility — he  has  also,  explain  it  as  we  please,  a  love  of  order  for 
the  sake  of  its  beauty.  We  enter  an  elegant  city,  and  we 
examine  its  public  buildings,  say  the  hall  in  which  its  citizens 
are  wont  to  assemble,  and  we  find  every  part  accommodated  to 
the  classic  forms  which  have  been  handed  down  from  ancient 
Greece.  We  inspect  the  temple  in  which  the  inhabitants  meet 
for  the  worship  of  God,  and  we  find  its  lines  following  a  sweep- 
ing curve,  and  reaching  at  last  a  vertex  which  seems  to  point 
to  heaven,  while  the  interior  looks  like  a  shaded  avenue  of  trees. 
We  wander  over  the  grounds  allotted  to  the  recreation  of  the 
inhabitants,  and  we  find  them  adorned  with  plants  of  divers 
forms  and  colours,  arranged  on  a  plan  which  furnishes  unifor- 
mity with  variety.  Here,  again,  we  recognise  order  produced 
by  intelligence  and  for  the  gratification  of  intelligence.  We  are 
now  to  inquire,  whether  there  may  not  be  a  similar  Order  in 
respect  of  such  qualities  as  Number,  Form,  Time,  and  Colour, 
in  the  works  of  nature,  proceeding  from  Creative  and  adapted 
to  Created  Intelligence. 

The  mind  has  an  aptitude  and  an  inclination  to  observe  rela- 
tions among  objects  in  respect  of  such  qualities  as  these;  it 
looks  out  for  them,  and  it  is  delighted  when  it  discovers  them. 
The  mental  faculty  and  tendency  we  are  now  to  shew  are  met 
and  gratified  in  every  department  of  the  earth  and  heavens. 
There  is  not  a  more  striking  correspondence  between  the  eye 
and  the  light  than  there  is  between  the  intellectual  capacity 
and  appetency,  and  the  groupings  of  physical  nature. 

(1.)  To  begin  with  Chemistry,  the  science  which  treats  of 
the  composition  of  bodies.  Dalton's  discovery  of  the  law  of 
definite  proportions  shows  that  there  is  a  law  of  numbers  at  the 
very  basis  of  this  science ;  for  all  compositions  and  decomposi- 
tions take  place  according  to  numerical  rule.  The  elements  of 
nature  will  not  combine  according  as  we  may  choose  to  mix 
them,  but  only  in  certain  definite  proportions ;  and  where 
between  the  same  elements  several  combining  proportions  occur, 


PREVALENCE  OF  GENERAL  LAWS.  117 

they  are  related  as  multiples.  In  order  to  composition  we  must 
have  the  elements  in  their  fixed  proportions,  and  as  the  result 
of  decomposition  we  come  back  to  elements  in  a  numerical  rela- 
tion. In  the  same  science,  we  have  a  numerical  law  in  the 
proportions  according  to  volumes  in  which  gases  combine. 

(2.)  Turning  to  Mineralogy,  Ave  find  the  commencement  of 
those  wondrous  forms  which  play  so  important  a  part  in  the 
organic  kingdoms.  A  careless  observer  is  apt  to  conclude  that 
no  regularity  exists  in  the  shapes  of  the  solid  bodies  which  fall 
under  our  notice  in  nature.  But  on  a  more  careful  inspection, 
it  will  be  found  that  the  greater  number  of  bodies  which  have 
in  themselves  no  regular  external  form,  present,  when  broken 
up,  distinct  traces  of  a  regular  or  crystalline  texture,  and  the 
impression  is  left  on  the  mind  that  the  entire  mass  is  an  aggre- 
gate of  an  infinity  of  small  crystals  banded  together.  It  is 
certain  that  the  greater  number  of  minerals  do  assume  certain 
geometric  forms  with  fixed  angles  and  proportions,  and  that  the 
same  mineral  In  the  same  circumstances  always  assumes  the 
same  crystalline  form.  These  crystals  are  bounded  by  plane 
faces ;  and  where  the  crystal  is  fully  formed,  every  face  or  sur- 
face has  opposed  to  it  a  parallel  face  or  surface.  The  number 
of  regular  forms  which  crystals  may  assume  is  very  great,  but 
these  have  been  reduced  to  six  primitive  forms,  which  have  all 
their  defined  angles  and  prescribed  number  of  sides. 

(3.)  Turning  now  to  Physics  and  Astronomy,  we  find  that 
the  science  of  Acoustics  is  founded  on  the  perceived  relation 
between  sound  and  number.  The  science  of  Optics  is  expressed 
in  laws  relating  to  angles  and  numbers.  The  angle  of  reflection 
is  found  to  be  equal  to  the  angle  of  incidence ;  and  we  have 
numerical  tables  setting  forth  the  powers  of  refraction.  The 
law  of  gravitation  itself  is  a  law  of  numbers.  As  Sir  John 
Herschel  has  remarked,  "  the  law  of  gravitation,  the  most  uni- 
versal truth  at  which  human  reason  has  yet  arrived,  expresses 
not  merely  the  general  fact  of  the  mutual  attraction  of  all 
matter,  not  merely  the  vague  statement  that  its  influence 
decreases  as  the  distance  increases,  but  the  exact  numerical  rate 
at  which  that  decrease  takes  place."  The  bodies  submitted  to 
this  law  of  numbers  are  so  arranged  as  to  produce  laws  of  form  ; 
they  have  a  particular  spheroidal  shape,  and  move  in  elliptic 
curves.     The  three  famous  laws  of  Kepler,  which  led  directly  to 


118  WISDOM  DISPLAYED  IN  THE 

the  Newtonian  discover}',  are  laws  of  form  or  number.  These 
laws  are,  that  the  orbits  of  the  planets  are  elliptical,  that  the 
areas  described  by  lines  drawn  from  the  sun  to  the  planet  are 
proportional  to  the  times  employed  in  the  motion,  and  that  the 
squares  of  the  periodic  times  are  as  the  cubes  of  the  distances. 
It  is  because  of  the  constant  presentation  of  regular  curves  and 
precise  numbers  in  the  shapes  and  motions  of  the  heavenly 
bodies,  that  the  science  which  deals  with  forms  and  numbers, 
that  is,  the  Mathematics,  admits  of  such  universal  application 
to  Astronomy.  It  is  from  the  same  cause  that  we  find  geome- 
trical symmetry  and  arithmetical  proportions  casting  up  in  all 
physical  investigation.  Forms  and  numbers  have  given  to 
human  science  all  its  success  and  astonishing  accuracy,  and  they 
have  done  so  because  of  their  universal  prevalence  in  nature. 
"  It  is  a  character,"  says  Herschel,  "  of  all  the  higher  laws  of 
nature  to  assume  the  form  of  a  precise  quantitative  statement." 
"  In  all  that  is  subject  to  motion  and  change  in  space,"  says 
Humboldt,  "  mean  numerical  values  are  the  ultimate  object — 
they  are  indeed  the  expression  of  physical  laws,  they  show  us 
the  constant  amid  change,  the  stable  amid  the  flow  of  pheno- 
mena. The  advance  of  our  modern  physical  science  is  especially 
characterized  by  the  attainment  and  progressive  rectification 
and  mean  values  of  certain  quantities  by  the  processes  of  weigh- 
ing and  measuring.  The  only  remaining  and  wide  diffused 
hieroglyphics  of  our  present  writing — numbers — reappear,  as 
once  in  the  Italian  school,  but  now  in  a  more  extended  sense, 
as  powers  of  Cosmos."  * 

All  this  is  intended  to  assist  the  eye  and  mind  of  man,  and 
enable  him  to  recognise  and  use  to  advantage  the  works  of  God. 
It  is  confirmatory  of  these  views,  to  find,  that  as  we  pass  from 
the  lower  inorganic  to  the  higher  inorganic — such  as  crystals, 
jewels,  and  metals,  planets,  satellites,  and  suns — and  when  we 
rise  from  the  inorganic  to  the  organic,  we  find  the  numerical 
and  symmetrical  order  becoming  more  prevalent  and  obvious, 
and  apparently  for  the  purpose  of  enabling  us  to  investigate  and 
group  these  more  important  departments  of  nature. 

Every  person  must  have  observed  how  often  eertain  numbers, 
such  as  three,  five,  seven,  and  ten,  occur  and  recur  in  human 
enumerations  and  transactions.  Eecourse  has  been  had  to  them 
*  Herschel,  Nat.  Phil.  Art.  116.     Humboldt's  Cosmos,  Part  First. 


PREVALENCE  OF  GENERAL  LAWS.  119 

in  all  nations  and  languages  ;  superstition  has  declared  them  to 
be  sacred,  and  philosophy  has  represented  them  as  perfect ;  and 
this  circumstance  is  sufficient  to  prove  that  they  are  advanta- 
geous. The  fact  that  corresponding  numbers  meet  us  in  the 
animal  and  vegetable  kingdoms,  as  we  are  now  to  show,  is  a 
proof  of  the  skilful  adaptation  of  these  departments  of  nature  to 
the  wants  and  character  of  mankind. 

(4.)  In  Vegetable  Physiology  forms  and  numbers  hold  a 
very  important  place.  "  The  form  of  a  living  body,"  says  Cuvier, 
"  is  still  more  essential  to  it  than  its  matter."  It  may  be  added, 
that  the  same  form  is  retained  amid  a  great  diversity  of  func- 
tions. Organs  similar  in  shape  serve  different  purposes  in  dif- 
ferent species  of  plants. 

The  simple  symmetry — that  is,  with  the  right  and  left  side 
alike — is  found  in  minerals,  but  becomes  more  frequent  among 
plants  and  animals.  The  oblong,  or  two-and-two-membered 
symmetry,  may  be  traced  extensively  among  crystals  and  flowers, 
as  may  also  the  three-membered  symmetry,  which  is  one  of  the 
characteristics  of  the  vegetable  kingdom.  The  square  is  a  com- 
mon form  in  crystals,  but  does  not  seem  suited  to  vegetable  or 
animal  organization.  The  pentagonal  is  to  be  found,  to  a 
limited  extent,  in  the  animal  kingdom,  and  is  by  far  the  most 
common  among  flowers.  Plants  are  divided  into  three  grand 
classes :  the  first,  acotyledons,  without  seed-lobe,  such  as  lichens 
and  fungi ;  secondly,  monocotyledons,  or  one-seed-lobed,  to 
which  belong  grapes,  lilies,  and  palms ;  and,  thirdly,  dicotyle- 
dons, or  two-seed-lobed,  such  as  common  garden  plants  and  trees. 
In  some  of  the  first  of  these  the  prevailing  number  is  two,  or 
multiples  of  two,  as  may  be  seen  in  the  number  of  teeth  at  the 
mouth  of  the  capsule  of  mosses.  In  the  second  it  is  three,  or 
multiples  of  three,  as  in  the  inflorescence  of  the  tulip.  In  the 
third  it  is  five,  as  in  the  geranium.  In  the  geranium  we  have 
counted  five  branches,  five  leaf-stalks,  five  main  veins,  five 
sepals,  five  petals,  and  multiples  of  five  in  the  inner  organs  of 
the  inflorescence. 

When  a  plant  has  two  floral  envelopes,  the  outer  is  called  the 
calyx,  and  the  inner  the  corolla.  The  calyx,  or  outer  whorl  of 
leaves,  consists  of  twTo  or  more  divisions  called  sepals,  usually 
green ;  and  the  corolla,  of  two  or  more  divisions  called  petals, 
usually  of  some  bright  colour.     Now,  we  find  that  the  petals 


120  WISDOM  DISPLAYED  IN  THE 

always  alternate  in  the  most  regular  manner  with  the  sepals, 
and  that  the  number  of  each  row  of  either  is  the  same.  "  All 
deviations  from  this  law,"  says  Lindley,  "are  either  apparent 
only,  in  consequence  of  partial  cohesions,  or,  if  real,  are  due  to 
partial  abortions."  Again,  we  find  that  the  stamens,  or  whorl 
of  organs  immediately  within  the  petals,  are  either  equal  in 
number  to  the  petals,  and  alternate  with  them,  or,  if  more 
numerous,  commonly  some  regular  multiple  of  the  petals. 

This  prevalence  of  order  enabled  a  poet,  (Goethe.)  with  a  fine 
sense  of  analogy,  to  observe  laws  in  natural  history  which  had 
escaped  the  most  rigid  scientific  investigation.  Following  out 
the  idea  of  Goethe  in  regard  to  the  metamorphosis  of  plants,  we 
find  Schleiden  exhibiting  to  us  a  typical  plant,  and  tracing  all 
the  varied  parts  of  the  diversified  plants  on  the  earth  to  two 
fundamental  organs,  the  stem  and  the  leaf*  The  stem  en- 
larging downwards  forms  the  root  and  the  lateral  rootlets,  and 
mounting  upwards  terminates  in  an  upper  end,  which  at  last 
develops  into  a  seed  or  seed-bud.  The  normal  leaf  branches 
out  into  a  far  greater  diversity  of  forms.  In  the  unfolding 
plant,  there  are  first  the  seed-lobes,  or  cotyledons,  then  the 
leaves  in  the  common  use  of  the  term,  and  at  length  there  is 
the  "  flower,"  or  "  blossom,"  and  in  it  four  different  degrees  of 
development  may  be  observed,  the  sepals,  petals,  stamens,  and 
pistils,  all  of  which  are  metamorphosed  leaves,  or,  we  would 
rather  say,  all  of  which  are  after  the  same  general  form  as  the 
common  leaves.  For  we  are  not,  like  some  who  have  advocated 
the  theory,  to  regard  all  nature  as  striving  after  a  model  form, 
and  f  uiltv  of  a  failure  so  far  as  it  falls  beneath  it ;  but  rather  as 
keeping  close  to  a  general  form  in  order  to  give  uniformity  to 
nature,  but  departing  from  it  on  either  side  in  order  to  furnish 
variety  and  adaptation  to  special  ends. 

We  are  convinced  that  it  is  possible  to  reduce  a  plant,  by  a 
more  enlarged  conception  of  its  form,  to  a  unity — that  is,  to 
discover  a  uniformity  through  all  its  organs.  There  are  points 
of  correspondence  between  the  ramification  of  the  stems  and  the 
venation  of  the  leaf.  We  have  traced  a  relation  between  the 
distribution  of  the  branches  of  a  tree  along  the  axis,  and  that  of 
the  veins  of  a  leaf  along  the  midribs.  Some  trees,  such  as  the 
beech,  the  elm,  the  oak,  and  the  greater  number  of  our  orna- 
«  Schlcidcn's  Plant,  a  Biography. 


PREVALENCE  OF  GENERAL  LAWS.  121 

mental  lawn  shrubs,  such  as  the  box,  the  holly,  the  Portugal  and 
bay  laurels,  are  branched  or  feathered  from  the  root,  or  near  the 
root,  and  the  leaves  of  all  these  species  have  little  or  no  leaf 
stalk.  Other  trees,  such  as  the  common  sycamore,  the  birch, 
the  horse  chestnut,  the  lime,  the  pear,  the  cherry,  the  apple, 
have  more  or  less  of  an  unbranched  trunk,  and  the  leaves  grow- 
ing on  them  have  a  leaf-stalk.  Again,  the  leaves  of  certain 
species,  such  as  the  sycamore,  the  lime,  the  gooseberry,  send  off 
a  number  of  main  veins  from  the  base,  and  the  leaves  of  certain 
other  plants,  such  as  the  rhododendron  and  azelea,  are  whorl ed 
round  the  branch,  and  in  both  these  sorts  of  plants  branches 
are  found  to  collect  near  a  point,  or  to  whorl  round  the  axis. 
The  main  axis  of  the  laburnum  and  the  broom  is  commonly 
subdivided  into  three  main  branches,  corresponding  to  the  triplet 
leaves.  There  is  a  farther  correspondence  between  the  angle  at 
which  the  branches  go  off,  and  the  angle  at  which  the  veins  of 
the  leaf  go  off.  It  is  obvious  at  a  glance  that  there  is  for  every 
particular  species  a  normal  angle  for  the  lateral  veins  of  the  leaf. 
Again,  if  any  one  carefully  observe  the  skeleton  of  a  tree,  as  seen 
between  him  and  a  clear  sky,  he  will  notice  that  for  every  parti- 
cular species  of  tree  there  is  a  normal  angle,  (from  which,  how- 
ever, there  are  many  departures,  caused  by  winds,  friction,  and 
other  external  causes,)  at  which  the  branches  go  off.  And  on 
comparing  the  two,  the  angle  of  venation  and  the  angle  of  rami- 
fication, they  will  be  found  to  be  the  same.  Several  other  points 
of  correspondence  may  be  detected  between  the  skeleton  of  the 
plant  and  its  leaf,  as,  for  example,  between  the  curve  of  the 
branch  and  that  of  the  vein.  Generally  the  leaf,  or  rather  the 
leafage,  coming  off  at  a  given  point,  may  be  held  as  representing 
a  branch,  or  the  whole  plant.* 

Turning  from  plants  with  expanded  leaves  to  those  with  linear 
leaves,  we  have  been  able  to  trace  a  beautiful  morphological 
order  in  pines  and  firs.  It  is  interesting  to  trace  the  succession 
of  whorls  along  the  axis  of  the  pine ;  to  notice  how  parts  not 
conical  are  made  to  produce  a  figure  conical  throughout ;  how 
the  seed-vessels,    as  their  name  (cones)  denotes,  are  made  to 

*  These  observations  were  laid  by  the  author  before  the  botanical  Society  of 
Edinburgh  in  June  1851,  (see  Trans.  Edin.  Bot.  Soc,  vol.  iv„)  and  before  the 
British  Association  in  1852.  and  again  in  1854.  (See  Sect.  Reports.)  See  also 
Balfour's  ClassBook  of  Botany,  V.  i.  c.  ii.  \  3. 


122  WISDOM  DISPLAYED  Off  THE 

take  the  same  shape,  as  do  also  the  very  clusters  or  bunches  of 
stamens.  We  have  observed  that  the  cones  are  often  types  of 
the  particular  species  of  tree  on  which  they  grow.  The  cone  of 
the  pine,  indeed,  may  furnish  an  attractive  study  to  the  reflect- 
ing observer  for  hour?.  Looking  at  the  arrangement  of  the 
scales,  he  may  follow  one  set  of  regular  spirals,  proceeding  from 
right  to  left,  and  another  set  proceeding  from  left  to  right. 
These,  by  their  intersection,  give  a  series  of  beautiful  rhomboids 

7  %.  7    O 

on  the  surface  of  the  cone,  and  if  he  measure  the  angles  of 

7  C7 

these  figures,  he  will  find  them  approximately  1203  above  and 
below,  and  60°  at  the  sides.  Turning  now  to  the  branches,  he 
will  find  the  scars  of  the  fallen  leaves  also  forming  two  sets  of 
spirals,  and  these,  by  their  intersection,  also  giving  a  series  of 
regular  rhomboids.  It  is  a  property  of  these  spirals  and  rhom- 
boids, that  from  whatever  point  we  view  them  they  carry  on  the 
eve.  and  show  us  a  regularitv  of  figure,  while  vet  there  is  no 
wearisome  sameness.* 

(5.)  Coming  now  to  Animal  Physiology,  we  find  that  the 
animal  kingdom  is  distributed  bv  naturalists  according  to  ex- 
ternal  marks,  the  radiata  having  their  parts  arranged  around  a 
common  centre,  the  mollusca  being  enclosed  wholly  or  partially 
in  a  soft  envelope,  the  articulata  being  jointed,  and  the  verte- 
brata  possessing  a  spiaal  column.  In  regard  to  vertebrata,  the 
class  falling  most  frequently  under  human  inspection,  it  is 
instructive  to  observe  that  their  subdivisions  into  fishes,  reptiles, 
birds,  and  mammals,  are  made  agreeably  to  visible  and  tangible 
characteristics.  Conformity  of  structure,  indeed,  has  been  the 
leading  principle  of  classification  in  zoology  from  the  time  of 
Aristotle  to  the  present  day. 

The  regular  fonns  in  the  inorganic  world  are  commonlv 
bounded  by  straight  lines,  but  as  we  rise  to  the  organic  world, 

*  The  author  developed  these  views  before  the  British  Association  in  September 
1854.  Each  of  the  sets  of  spirals  on  the  cone  and  branch  is  made  up  of  several 
members  or  threads.  The  number  of  threads  in  any  given  set  of  spirals  is  always 
one  or  other  of  the  following,— 1,  2,  3,  5,  8,  13,  21,  34,  in  which  scale  every  suc- 
ceeding number  is  made  up  by  the  addition  of  the  two  preceding;  this  holds  true 
of  all  the  conifers.  The  numbers  of  the  threads  of  the  two  opposite  sets  of  spirals 
are  always  contiguous  ones  in  the  above  scale ;  thus,  if  the  number  of  the  one 
spiral  be  5,  that  of  the  other  must  be  3  or  8.  The  number  of  threads  in  the  spirals 
seems  to  be  definite  for  every  species.  The  number  of  threads  in  the  two  spirals 
of  the  branch  is  often  a  stage  lower  than  in  those  of  the  cone  ;  thus  in  pines  the 
numbers  of  the  branch  are  commonly  3  and  5,  and  in  the  cone  5  and  8. 


PREVALENCE  OF  GENERAL  LAWS.  123 

we  meet  with  a  more  rounded  contour,  and  a  more  clothed 
aspect.  Professor  Mosely  has  shown,  that  in  certain  shells  of 
molluscs,  the  size  of  the  whorls  and  distance  hetween  the  whorls 
follows  a  geometrical  progression,  and  that  the  spiral  formed  is 
a  logarithmal  spiral  of  which  it  is  a  property  that  it  has  every- 
where the  same  geometrical  curvature,  which  can  be  said  of  no 
other  curve  except  the  circle.  In  the  lower  tribes  of  animals  the 
forms  are  chiefly  globular,  but  as  we  ascend  in  the  scale  they 
assume  a  great  elegance  of  outline.  So  great  is  the  attention 
paid  to  type  throughout  the  animal  kingdom,  that  we  find 
animals,  if  not  with  the  organs,  at  least  with  the  form  of  organs, 
that  are  of  no  use  except  to  keep  up  the  symmetry.  There  are 
classes  of  animals  in  which  forms  appear  which  have  an  object 
and  significance  only  in  other  classes.  The  blind  fish  of  Kentucky 
cavern  has  no  use  for  eyes  in  the  dark  waters  which  it  inhabits ; 
but,  to  preserve  its  symmetry  of  figure,  it  has  the  rudiments  of 
eyes  in  the  place  usually  occupied  by  these  organs. 

It  was  discovered  at  an  early  date  that  there  was  a  conformity 
of  structure  in  the  fore  limbs  of  vertebrate  animals,  which  are  fins 
in  the  fish,  wings  in  the  bird,  fore  feet  in  the  reptile  and  mam- 
mal, and  arms  and  hands  in  man.  A  parallelism  can  be  traced 
between  the  fore  and  hind  limbs  of  the  same  species,  without 
regard  to  the  diversity  of  office  to  which  they  may  be  severally 
adapted.  Thus  the  normal  or  typical  number  of  toes  is  ten,  five 
in  each  row  corresponding  to  the  typical  number  of  the  digits. 
In  many  animals,  indeed,  some  of  these  are  awanting,  but  in  such 
cases  they  will  often  be  found  in  a  kind  of  undeveloped  state. 
Thus  in  the  horse,  the  first  finger  may  be  detected  in  a  rudi- 
mental  state  in  a  sort  of  wart  in  the  leg,  the  second  and  fourth 
in  the  splint  bones,  while  the  foot  corresponds  to  the  mid-finger, 
and  the  hoof  is  just  the  nail  of  that  finger  enlarged  beyond  the 
normal  size. 

Professor  Owen,  correcting  and  following  out  a  series  of  pre- 
vious observations  by  Geoffroy  St.  Hilaire,  Oken,  and  others,  has 
shewn  to  the  satisfaction  of  all  anatomists,  that  the  axis  of  the 
body  of  vertebrate  animals  from  the  top  of  the  head  to  the  tip 
of  the  tail  is  made  of  a  series  of  segments  ;  of  each  of  which 
certain  parts  "maintain  such  constancy  in  their  existence,  rela- 
tive position,  connexions,  and  offices,  as  to  enforce  the  conviction 
chat  they  are  homologous  parts  both  in  the  constituent  series  of 


124  WISDOM  DISPLAYED  IN  THE 

the  same  individual  skeleton."*  The  typical  segment  called  a 
vertebra  is  composed  of  a  centre,  a  neural  and  haemal  spine,  and 
certain  processes  which  may  support  diverging  appendages  to  be 
afterwards  spoken  of.  We  find  these  essential  parts  throughout 
the  whole  back-bone.  They  are,  indeed,  in  some  parts  of  all 
animals  so  altered  from  their  typical  form,  that  it  is  difficult  to 
detect  them  ;  still  the  skilful  anatomist  can  trace  them  under  all 
their  modifications,  and  finds  it  convenient  to  describe  them  by 
the  same  names.  In  the  tail,  we  have  the  processes  employed 
to  embrace  blood-vessels  ;  in  the  body,  certain  of  them  are  ribs 
to  protect  the  great  vital  organs ;  in  the  neck,  we  do  not  find 
ribs,  because  they  would  injure  the  free  motion  of  the  organ,  but 
we  have  the  rudiments  of  ribs.  Nay,  it  is  now  ascertained  that 
the  skull  itself  is  made  up  of  parts  which  can  be  arranged  in  a 
series  of  segments  in  which  there  may  be  detected  the  essential 
parts  of  the  vertebra. 

The  morphological  significature  of  the  limbs  of  vertebrate 
animals  has  likewise  been  determined  by  Professor  Owen.  We 
have  said  that  the  processes  of  the  vertebra  might  have  diverging 
appendages.  In  particular,  from  the  haemal  or  lower  arch  of  the 
vertebra  certain  appendages  are  found  to  proceed.  Owen  traces 
them  in  a  rudimental  state  in  certain  vertebrae  of  the  animal 
frame,  and  after  an  extensive  induction,  he  comes  to  the  conclusion 
that  the  scapula  and  caracoid  form  the  haemal  arch,  and  the 
human  hands  and  arms  the  diverging  appendages  of  the  haemal 
arch,  belonging  to  the  lowest  segment,  the  occipital  segment  of 
the  skull.  The  hind  limbs  are  shewn  by  a  similar  process  to 
be  costal  appendages  of  a  pelvic  vertebra.  He  demonstrates 
that  there  are  homologous  segments  appearing  in  the  limbs  of 
fishes,  reptiles,  birds,  mammals,  and  man,  though  they  have 
to  perform  very  different  functions  in  each  of  these  tribes  of 
animals.  He  exhibits  to  us  the  pectoral  fin  of  the  dugong,  the 
fore  limbs  of  the  mole,  the  wing  of  the  bat,  the  leg  of  the  horse, 
and  the  arm  of  man,  and  proves  that  certain  essential  parts  run 
through  them  all,  and  maintain  a  unity  of  plan,  even  when  such 
different  functions  have  to  be  performed,  as  that  of  diving  and 
swimming,  burrowing  and  running,  climbing  and  flying.  It  is 
a  curious  circumstance,  that  every  segment,  and  almost  every 
bone  present  in  the  human  hand  and  arm,  exist  also  in  the  fin  of 
*  Owen  on  Homologies  of  Vertebrate  Skeleton,  p.  81. 


PREVALENCE  OF  GENERAL  LAWS.  125 

the  whale,  though  they  do  not  seem  required  for  the  support 
and  movements  of  that  undivided  and  inflexible  paddle*  The 
whole  skeleton,  skull,  back  bone,  ribs,  and  limbs,  are  thus  re- 
duced to  a  unity  in  a  series  of  segments  repeated  in  their  essential 
parts,  though  infinitely  diversified  to  suit  the  purposes  of  the 
member. 

Similar  homologies  are  being  detected  in  the  invertebrate  class 
of  animals.  The  bodies  of  crabs  and  insects  are  made  up  of  a 
series  of  rings  with  appendages,  both  of  which  are  formed  after  a 
common  plan,  though  modified  to  suit  special  purposes.  In  star 
fishes  and  sea  urchins,  the  five-fold  division  of  parts  is  commonly 
very  obvious.  These  typical  forms  appear  not  only  throughout 
the  whole  existing  series  of  animals  from  the  highest  to  the 
lowest,  but  throughout  the  whole  geological  series,  from  the 
earliest  to  the  latest.  The  typical  number  of  toes  may  be  seen 
in  the  footprints  of  reptiles  left  on  the  rocks  of  very  old  forma- 
tions. Buckland  tells  us  that  in  the  "fore-paddle  of  the  plesio- 
saurus  we  have  all  the  essential  parts  of  the  fore-leg  of  a  qua- 
druped, and  even  of  a  human  arm  ;  first  the  scapula,  next  the 
humerus,  then  the  radius  and  ulna  succeeded  by  the  bones  of 
the  carpus  and  metacarpus,  and  these,  followed  by  five  fingers, 
each  composed  of  a  continuous  series  of  phalanges.  The  hind- 
paddle  also  offers  precisely  the  same  analogies  to  the  leg  and 
foot  of  the  mammalia ;  the  pelvis  and  femur  are  succeeded  by  a 
tibia  and  fibula,  which  articulate  with  the  bones  of  the  tarsus, 
and  metatarsus  followed  by  the  numerous  phalanges  of  five 
long  toes." 

There  seem  to  run  through  both  the  animal  and  vegetable 
kingdoms,  not  one,  but  two  principles ;  the  principle  of  order, 
and  the  principle  of  special  adaptation.  That  every  part  of  the 
plant  and  animal  is  suited  to  the  functions  and  sphere  of  life  of 


*  Lecture  on  Limbs  by  R.  Owen,  F.R.S.  This  original  and  learned  anatomist 
thinks  he  has  discovered  a  harmony  in  the  structure  of  animals  such  as  could  not 
proceed  from  a  mere  regard  to  final  causes.  We  are  prepared  to  admit  the  truth 
and  importance  of  this  remark,  provided  it  be  understood  as  relating  merely  to 
final  causes  having  a  reference  to  the  wellbeing  of  the  animal.  We  can  discover 
a  very  obvious  final  cause  of  these  homologies  in  the  circumstance  that  they  enable 
intelligent  beings  to  arrange  and  group  the  works  of  God.  How  could  the  com- 
mon observer  recognise  and  distinguish  the  animal  races  ?  how  could  Owen  make 
his  discoveries  without  the  help  of  such  a  principle  ?  Owen  has  developed  uncon- 
sciously a  teleology  of  a  higher  and  more  archetypal  order  than  Cuvier. 


126  WISDOM  DISPLAYED  IN  THE 

the  species  is  a  truth  admitted  by  all  eminent  physiologists ;  and 
recent  science  is  placing  along  side  of  this  another  principle,  that 
every  organic  body,  and  every  member  of  an  organic  body,  are 
constructed  on  a  model  form,  upon  a  predetermined  pattern. 
These  two  great  and  far-reaching  truths  are  not  contradictory 
but  coincident ;  each  rests  on  its  separate  evidence,  and  the  one 
equally  with  the  other  is  fitted  to  illustrate  the  Divine  prescience. 
While  the  special  modifications  or  adaptations  are  intended  to 
promote  the  wellbeing  of  the  plant  or  animal,  the  homologies 
and  homotypes  are  meant  to  make  organic  nature  comprehensible 
by  the  intelligent  creation. 

The  prevalence  of  these  archetypal  forms  gives  to  nature  a 
particular  aspect,  by  which  we  easily  recognise  it,  and  can  at 
once  distinguish  between  the  works  of  God  and  the  works  of 
man.  Nature  has  not  only  its  peculiar  physiology  or  connexion 
of  structure — it  has  its  peculiar  physiognomy  or  characteristic 
countenance.  Every  observer  will  be  prepared  to  acknowledge 
at  once  the  truth  of  two  favourite  remarks  of  Humboldt,  that 
every  particular  region  of  the  earth  has  its  particular  aspect, 
and  that  the  Cosmos,  as  a  whole,  has  a  unity  of  aspect.  "  Not- 
withstanding a  certain  freedom,"  says  he,  "  of  development  oi 
the  several  parts,  the  primitive  force  of  organization  binds  all 
animal  and  vegetable  forms  to  fixed  and  constantly  recurring 
types,  determining  in  every  zone  the  character  that  peculiarly 
appertains  to  it,  or  the  physiognomy  of  nature."  "  Nature," 
says  Sir  Isaac  Newton,  "  is  very  consonant  and  conformable  to 
herself."  D.  Stewart  remarks,  that  "  there  is  a  certain  character 
or  style  (if  I  may  use  the  expression)  in  the  operations  of 
Divine  wisdom,  something  which  everywhere  announces,  amidst 
an  infinite  variety  of  detail,  an  inimitable  unity  and  harmony 
of  design." 

It  is  not  difficult  in  our  view  to  discover  the  final  cause  of 
this  numerical  and  symmetrical  order.  Nature  has  first  of  all 
weights  and  measures  by  which  she  gives  out  her  materials,  and 
it  looks  as  if  God  had  literally  "  weighed  the  mountains  in 
scales  and  the  hills  in  a  balance."  Then,  she  has  moulds  in 
which  she  casts  her  products  in  their  finished  form.  By  this 
better  "  signature"  than  the  fanciful  "  signature  of  plants,"  we 
are  enabled  to  recognise  and  arrange  the  various  objects  by 
which  we  are  surrounded,  and  turn  them  to  their  proper  uses. 


PREVALENCE  OF  GENERAL  LAWS.  127 

We  see  what  pains  God  has  taken  to  induce  us  to  become  ac- 
quainted with  and  put  confidence  in  his  works.  If  you  look  at 
them,  you  can  know  them  as  you  know  the  faces  of  your  friends, 
by  their  features  and  expression.  Put  them  to  the  test,  and 
they  come  out  as  certain  steady  principles,  steadfast  as  the  most 
faithful  of  friends. 

This  order  is,  no  doubt,  intended  primarily  and  mainly  for 
practical  purposes.  Hence  it  is  an  order  which  strikes  the 
senses,  and  which  can  be  easily  observed  and  remembered.  It 
is  also  the  means  by  which  science  is  enabled  to  construct  its 
systems.  It  is  not  needful  in  furthering  these  ends,  that  the 
order  should  be  so  very  precise  as  a  "  minute  philosopher"  (to 
use  a  phrase  of  Berkely's)  would  make  it.  As  in  modern 
gardening  order  is  not  less  attended  to,  while  it  is  far  less  visible 
than  it  was  when  every  line  was  straight,  every  parterre  squared, 
and  every  tree  cut  into  shape,  so  in  the  works  of  God,  the  order 
is  not  the  less  beautiful  and  bountiful  because  it  is  not  precise. 
Scientific  inquirers  do,  indeed,  complain  that  there  is  a  difficulty 
in  finding  a  classification  at  once  simple,  correct,  and  complete, 
of  the  objects  in  the  mineral,  vegetable,  and  animal  kingdoms. 
Still,  there  are  numerous  facilities  furnished  for  such  a  classifi- 
cation, in  the  obvious  order  which  prevails  in  nature ;  and  any 
difficulties  that  may  present  themselves  to  the  rigid  logician, 
arise  mainly,  we  are  convinced,  from  the  circumstance  that 
nature  hath  constructed  her  forms  chiefly  for  practical  ends ; 
and  she  will  not,  in  order  to  suit  our  modes  of  reasoning,  keep 
rigidly  to  a  rule,  when  an  anomaly  might  be  more  useful  to  the 
common  observer,  or  tend  more  effectually  to  promote  the  func- 
tions of  the  animal  or  plant.  We  can  easily  understand  how, 
with  an  order  sufficient  for  all  practical  purposes,  there  should 
yet  be  a  call  to  depart  from  it,  to  a  greater  or  less  extent,  to 
suit  the  climate  and  situation,  and  to  promote  the  comfort  of 
the  living  being.  So  far  as  the  objects  contemplated  in  natural 
philosophy  are  concerned,  there  needs  no  such  divergence  ;  and 
this  may  be  the  reason  why,  when  natural  history  has  always 
somewhat  of  looseness  in  its  laws,  those  of  such  sciences  as 
chemistry  and  physics  are  scientifically  and  mathematically 
correct. 

We  can  now  understand  how,  in  the  minds  of  certain  mystic 
philosophers,  a  mysterious  importance  should  have  been  attached 


128  WISDOM  DISPLAYED  IN  THE 

to  forms  and  numbers.  It  was  an  ancient  Pythagorean  maxim 
that  numbers  are  the  principia  of  the  universe,  and  that  things 
are  but  the  copies  of  numbers.  We  will  not  enter  upon  the 
controversies  which,  in  ancient  Greece  as  well  as  in  modern 
Europe,  have  arrayed  ingenious  speculators  into  opposing  parties, 
because,  as  one  of  the  combatants  says,  ll  we  are  unwilling  to 
spin  out  our  awaking  thoughts  into  the  phantasms  of  sleep, 
making  cables  of  cobwebs."*  When  such  philosophers  as  Pytha- 
goras and  Plato,  not  to  mention  the  author  now  quoted,  have 
differed,  we  are  not  disposed  to  fix  on  the  perfect  or  radical 
number  of  the  universe.  We  refer  to  these  discussions,  which 
the  superficial  mind  of  modern  times  is  not  much  inclined,  we 
suspect,  to  appreciate,  for  the  purpose  of  bringing  out  the  great 
truth,  that  regularity  pervades  the  world.  How  multiplied  the 
traces  which  ingenious  speculators  of  the  class  referred  to  have 
discovered  !  One  has  shown  how  the  circle  or  sphere  bounds 
the  shapes  and  paths  of  the  heavenly  bodies,  and  many  of  the 
stalks  and  flowers  of  plants.  Another,  jealous  for  Christianity, 
has  rather  delighted  to  trace  the  form  of  the  cross  in  a  thousand 
objects  in  every  clime ;  while  two,  three,  four,  and  five-fold, 
lozenge,  and  network  figures  have  been  detected  in  every  depart- 
ment of  nature,  and  given  rise  to  rival  schools.  We  would  not 
set  the  advocate  of  the  triangle  against  the  supporter  of  the 
circle  or  quincunx  ;  but  we  adopt  the  discoveries  of  all  into  our 
eclectic  creed,  and  would  charitably  reconcile  old  feuds  between 
men  whose  writings  now  slumber  in  peace  amidst  dust  in  the 
most  inaccessible  shelves  of  our  libraries,  by  just  suggesting 
that  all  these  forms  abound  in  nature,  and  contribute  to  its 
reigning  order.  Peace  be  to  the  ashes  of  those  who  supported 
their  cause  sometimes  with  warmth  as  excessive  as  their  inge- 
nuity !  We  honour  them  all  for  their  discoveries,  and  draw 
from  their  learned  speculations  proofs  of  a  beautifully  pervading 
order  in  the  world,  suited  to  the  state  and  nature  of  man,  and 
fitted  to  minister  to  his  delight  and  increase  his  knowledge. 

The  principle  which  reigns  in  nature  is  not  the  triangular, 
the  pentagonal,  or  cruciform,  nor  is  it  the  symmetrical  nor  the 
numerical ;  it  is  the  principle  of  order,  and  that  towards  a  given 
end,  the  furtherance  of  knowledge,  and,  we  may  add,  of  enjoyment 
among  the  intelligent  creation.     It  exhibits  itself  under  a  great 

*  Browne's  Garden  of  Cyrus. 


PREVALENCE  OF  GENERAL  LAWS.  129 

many  other  forms  besides  those  of  shape  and  number.  13very 
one  knows  that  certain  colours  placed  alongside  of  each  other 
are  felt  to  be  in  harmony,  while  certain  others,  when  in  juxta- 
position, are  felt  to  be  discordant.  It  is  now  established  that 
when  the  eye  alights  on  any  one  colour,  it  loves  to  have  beside 
it  its  complementary  colour,  that  is  the  colour  necessary  when 
taken  along  with  the  other  to  make  up  the  full  beam.  In  the 
decoration  of  rooms,  in  our  finer  needlework  and  patterns  for 
the  higher  style  of  manufactures,  studious  attention  is  now  paid 
to  harmony  of  colours.  But  there  has  been  all  along  a  similar 
regard  had  to  it,  in  the  colouring  of  plants  and  the  plumage  of 
birds.  There  are  supposed  to  be  three  primary  colours  in  the 
sunbeam,  yellow,  red,  and  blue,  these  mixed  together  give  rise 
to  the  secondaries,  orange,  purple,  and  green,  to  the  tertiaries, 
citrine,  russet,  and  olive,  and  indeed  to  the  unnumbered  hues 
to  be  found  in  nature  and  in  art.  Let  us  take  as  illustrations 
the  three  secondary  colours,  and  inquire  what  colours  are  com- 
monly associated  with  them  in  nature.  Green  composed  of 
yellow  and  blue  harmonizes  with  red,  and  the  eye  delights  to 
see  the  red  flower — as  of  the  rose,  and  the  red  fruit — as  of  the 
cherry,  the  thorn,  the  holly,  peeping  forth  so  frequently  from 
the  green  foliage.  Green  also  harmonizes  with  russet,  and 
russet  is  very  frequently  the  colour  of  the  young  twigs  and  leaf 
stalks,  which  contrast  pleasantly  with  their  leaves.  The  second- 
ary purple,  composed  of  red  and  blue,  mixed  in  very  varied 
proportions,  seems  to  be  the  most  common  colour  on  the  petals 
of  flowers  ;  and  in  the  centre  of  the  inflorescence,  sometimes  on 
the  base  of  the  petals,  more  frequently  on  the  anthers  and 
pollen,  we  may  commonly  detect  the  sister  colour,  the  yellow. 
Purple  also  harmonizes  with  citrine,  and  these  two  may  often 
be  seen,  beside  each  other,  in  the  inflorescence  of  grasses,  and  in 
decaying  vegetation.  Orange  composed  of  yellow  and  red  is  in 
harmony  with  blue,  and  at  times  a  blue  corolla  has  an  orange 
heart.  The  same  colour  also  agrees  with  olive,  and  certain 
«yngenesian  flowers  of  an  orange  colour  have  an  olive  involucre. 
Cn  birds,  the  most  common  harmony  is  between  black  and 
white  ;  the  next,  a  yellowish  red  with  a  darkish  blue  ;  while  in 
the  more  ornamented  birds  we  have  various  hues  of  green  har- 
monizing with  different  hues  of  red.  On  all  sides  of  us  the  eye 
receives  unconscious  delight  from  these  sister  colours  ever  ap- 


130  WISDOM  DISPLAYED  IN  THE 

pearing  together.     It  is  evident  that  he  who  made  the  eye  also 
painted  the  objects  which  the  eye  looks  at.* 

It  is  this  principle  of  order,  if  we  do  not  mistake,  which  gives 
to  nature  that  unity  which  reflecting  minds  have  ever  been  fond 
of  observing.  "  The  highest  and  most  important  result  of  the 
investigation  of  physical  phenomena,"  says  Humboldt,  "  is  the 
knowledge  of  the  connexion  of  the  forces  of  nature,  the  deep 
sense  of  their  inward  dependence."  "  That  which  revealed  itself 
first  to  the  interior  sense,  as  a  vague  presentiment  of  the  har- 
mony and  order  of  the  universe,  presents  itself  to  the  soul  in 
these  times  as  the  fruit  of  long  and  anxious  observation."  "Na- 
ture, considered  rationally,  that  is  to  say,  submitted  to  the 
process  of  thought,  is  a  unity  in  diversity  of  phenomena  blend- 
ing together  all  created  things,  however  dissimilar  in  form  and 
attributes  ;  one  great  whole  (to  irav)  animated  by  the  breath  of 
life."  But  we  doubt  much  if  this  philosopher,  after  all,  has 
determined  either  the  precise  nature  of  this  unity,  or  the  origin 
of  the  feeling  of  it.  He  seeks  for  the  ground  of  the  unity  in  a 
connexion  of  forces,  and  talks  of  reducing  the  immensity  of 
different  phenomena  which  the  Cosmos  embraces,  to  a  unity  of 
principle.  Man,  he  acknowledges,  may  never  reach  the  discovery 
of  this  one  principle,  but  it  is  the  point  towards  which  all  scien- 
tific investigation  is  represented  by  him  as  tending.  This  unity 
of  nature  is,  in  our  view,  a  unity  of  order ;  and  this  unity  of 
order  being  all-pervading,  reflecting  minds  in  every  age  have 
perceived  it,  and  all  minds  enamoured  of  nature  have  felt  it. 
The  Greeks  embodied  their  perceptions  in  the  word  which  they 
employed  to  denote  visible  nature,  which  they  called  Cosmos,  a 
phrase  including  both  order  and  ornament ;  and  the  Latins  in 
the  word  Mundus,  a  phrase  much  less  expressive,  inasmuch  as  it 
does  not  characterize  the  former  of  these  elements.  The  ancient 
Ionian  physiologists  sought  to  explain  this  unity  by  referring  all 
things  to  some  one  physical  element,  and  delighted  to  trace  the 
metamorphosis  of  water  or  fire,  as  accounting  for  the  whole 
phenomena  of  the  universe.     Pythagoras  and  the  Italian  school 

*  The  author  having  long  had  the  idea  that  harmonious  colour  would  be  found 
in  flowers,  ventured  to  give  expression  to  it  in  a  paper  read  before  the  Natural 
History  Society  of  Belfast  in  May  1853.  Dr.  Dickie  has  prosecuted  the  subject  in 
a  more  scientific  manner,  and  gave  the  results  to  the  same  Society  in  October 
1853.  In  September  1854,  the  two  read  papers  on  the  subject  to  the  British 
Association.    The  author  is  responsible  for  the  statements  in  the  text 


PREVALENCE  OF  GENERAL  LAWS.  131 

sought  to  trace  this  unity,  in  a  more  mystical  but  to  some 
extent  a  more  profoundly  exact  way,  to  numbers  and  forms. 
Speculators  in  modern  times  have  imagined  that  investigation 
will  at  length  disclose  some  great  logical  abstraction  or  physical 
power  as  the  origin  and  cause  of  this  unity  *  Now  this  unity, 
if  we  do  not  mistake,  is  just  to  be  traced  to  a  universal  order, 
and  the  universal  appreciation  of  it  to  the  way  in  which  this 
order  is  pressed  upon  our  notice.  All  science  proceeds  upon 
this  order,  and  genius  has  ever  been  employed  in  unfolding  it. 
Lofty  minds,  such  as  those  of  Plato  and  Kepler,  have  at  times 
erred  in  transferring  their  own  ideas  of  order  to  the  objective 
world  ;  but  it  is  not  the  less  true  that  this  order  permeates  all 
nature,  and  that  all  discoveries  have  been  made  by  the  inquirer 
setting  out  in  quest  of  it.  But  this  unity  does  not  spring,  as  the 
Ionians  thought,  from  a  unity  of  physical  element ;  nor  from 
the  inherent  powers  of  figures  and  numbers,  as  the  Pythagoreans 
asserted  ;  nor  from  a  fundamental  logical  principle,  as  some 
modern  German  metaphysicians  seem  to  think ;  nor  from  a 
unity  of  physical  power  to  be  discovered  some  time  or  other,  as 
certain  physical  philosophers  appear  to  imagine.  "  The  philoso- 
pher," says  Humboldt,  "  arrives  at  last  at  an  intimate  persuasion 
of  one  indissoluble  chain  of  affinity  binding  together  all  nature." 
The  one  principle  which  reigns  is  a  principle  of  order  amidst  a 
vast  number  of  elements,  but  all  brought  by  it  into  subordina- 
tion, and  using  forms,  and  numbers,  and  physical  forces,  only  as 
its  principal  instruments,  and  tying  nature,  not  as  an  indissolu- 
ble chain,  but  as  the  string  keeps  together  the  bunch  of  flowers 
until  they  wither.  It  is  the  same  unity  as  there  is  in  a  taste- 
fully laid-out  garden,  in  a  skilfully  planned  building,  with  this 
only  difference,  that  in  these  it  is  a  mere  unity  formed  among 
previously  existing  materials,  whereas,  in  the  works  of  God,  it  is 

*  Aug.  Comte  represents  the  positive  philosophy  as  tending  towards  represent- 
ing different  observable  phenomena  as  the  particular  states  of  a  general  fact  like 
that  of  gravitation. — (Phil.  Pos.  vol.  i.  p.  5.)  Schelling  seems  to  trace  this  unity 
to  absolute  existence  developing  itself,  and  Hegel  to  the  unity  of  contradictories 
and  the  identity  of  being  and  thought.  But  this  unity  is  not  one  of  identity  but 
of  adaptation,  instituted  by  Him  who  made  matter,  and  mind  to  contemplate 
matter.  It  proceeds  from  the  correspondence  betweei'  the  powers  and  aptitudes 
of  the  mind  and  the  properties  and  order  of  the  physical  universe.  Just  as  there 
is  an  adaptation  between  the  eye  and  tfte  light  that  falls  on  it  and  the  harmonious 
colours  in  nature,  so  there  is  a  correspondence  between  the  observing  mind  and 
the  world  observed  by  it. 


132  WISDOM  DISPLAYED  IN  THE 

a  unity  in  the  original  composition  as  well  as  in  the  construc- 
tion of  nature.  No  doubt  this  unity  of  order  implies  a  con- 
nexion of  forces,  but  a  connexion  arranged  by  an  intelligent 
mind  using  the  forces  to  effect  the  contemplated  end.  This 
unity  carries  us  up  to  the  Divine  unity,  of  which  it  is  a  proof, 
and  the  Divine  beneficence,  of  which  it  is  an  illustration. 

It  is  because  this  order  of  nature  has  to  accomplish  these  ends 
— (it  is  a  mean  and  not  an  end) — that  it  is  not  like  the  classi- 
fications of  science — stiff,  rigid,  and  unbending — but  easy,  yield- 
ing, and  accommodating,  like  the  manners  of  the  man  who  is 
thoroughly  polite  after  the  highest  mode,  and  who  sometimes 
performs  actions  contrary  to  the  rules  of  the  mere  formalist, 
because  he  acts  according  to  the  highest  rule  of  a  mind  of  deli- 
cate feeling  and  tact.  The  order  of  nature  is  a  varied  order  to 
suit  the  varied  circumstances.  It  is  an  order  which  will  not 
sacrifice  the  end  in  a  foolish  adherence  to  the  mere  means.  In 
its  seeming  irregularities,  it  may  be  disregarding  a  lesser  rule, 
but  only  to  attend  to  the  highest  rule,  which  embraces  every 
other.  It  is  all-comprehensive  as  the  canopy  of  heaven ;  but 
like  it  too,  opens  as  we  become  afraid  that  we  are  approaching 
its  boundary. 

Every  eye  may  notice  it ;  it  presents  itself  in  every  depart- 
ment of  nature.  Take  up  the  commonest  plant — the  furze  that 
grows  on  the  common,  the  sea-weed  that  clings  to  the  rocks 
washed  by  the  ocean,  or  the  fern  that  springs  up  in  the  moun- 
tain glen — and  you  may  observe  in  its  structure,  in  its  leaves,  or 
pendicles,  a  wonderful  correspondence  of  side  to  side  and  part 
to  part.  Let  the  eye  travel  over  nature  as  we  walk  along  the 
cultivated  fields,  or  the  grassy  slopes  and  valleys  of  our  upland 
countries,  or  among  the  thick  woods  where  the  winds  have 
strewn  the  seeds,  and  bush  and  tree  of  every  kind  spring  up, 
each  eager  to  maintain  its  place,  and  to  show  its  separate  form 
and  beauty — and  we  discover  an  order  in  every  branch,  and 
blade,  and  leaf,  and  shade,  and  colour.  Take  up  a  leaf  or 
flower,  and  examine  it  with  or  without  the  aid  which  art  can 
furnish,  and  observe  how  one  edge  has  the  same  number  of 
notches  upon  it  as  the  other  edge,  and  what  nice  balancings 
and  counterpoises  there  are,  and  how  nicely  the  lines  and  dots 
and  shadings  of  colour  suit  each  other,  and  recur  each  at 
its  proper  place,  as  if  all  had  been  done  by  the  most  exact 


PREVALENCE  OF  GENERAL  LAWS.  133 

measurement,  and  under  the  most  skilful  and  tasteful  eye. 
Enter  the  rich  arbour  or  the  cultivated  garden,  and  observe  how 
the  flowers  have  been  enlarged  and  improved  by  the  care  which 
has  been  taken  of  them ;  and  in  this  gayer  colour,  and  that 
fuller  expanse,  more  flowing  drapery,  and  richer  fragrance,  mark 
how  God,  who  rewards  us  for  opening  our  eyes  and  looking 
abroad  on  his  works,  holds  out  a  still  greater  reward  to  those 
who,  in  love  to  him,  or  in  love  to  them,  take  pains  with  and 
bestow  labour  upon  them. 

Eising  higher,  we  find  all  leading  events  in  the  earth  and 
heavens  to  run  in  periods.  Plants  have  their  seasons  for  bud- 
ding, for  growing,  for  bearing  seed  and  fruit,  and  their  whole 
existence  is  for  an  allotted  time.  The  life  of  animals  and  of 
man  himself  is  a  period ;  and  it  has  its  periodic  developments 
of  infancy,  of  youth,  of  manhood,  and  old  age.  The  very 
diseases  of  the  human  frame  have  their  periods.  The  events  of 
history,  in  respect  of  politics,  civilisation,  science,  literature,  and 
religion,  can  be  arranged  into  cycles  ;  and  as  a  whole,  exhibit  a 
regular,  though  a  somewhat  complex  progression.  The  tides  of 
the  ocean,  and  in  many  places  the  currents,  flow  in  periods  ;  and 
in  some  countries,  the  winds  blow  and  the  rains  fall  at  certain 
regular  seasons.  The  variations  of  magnetism  on  the  earth's 
surface  seem  to  be  periodical.  The  changes  in  the  condition  of 
the  earth  have  been  arranged  into  geological  epochs.  The  year 
is  a  period,  and  it  has  its  seasons  ;  and  there  are  magni  anni  in 
the  movements  of  the  planets,  in  the  revolutions  of  the  binary 
and  multiple  stars,  and  probably  also  in  the  movements  of  the 
constellations  and  groups  of  the  nebular  heavens. 

But  this  order,  thus  so  universal,  is  very  diversified.  It  will 
not  be  compressed  within  the  narrow  systems  which  men, 
founding  on  a  limited  experience,  are  in  the  way  of  forming,  or 
suit  itself  to  the  rigid  forms  of  human  logic.  It  embraces  time, 
number,  space,  forms,  colours,  and  force,  as  elements  employed, 
and  it  blends  these  together  in  unnumbered  ways.  Sometimes 
its  rule  is  sample,  and  at  other  times  of  great  complexity.  It 
has  correspondences,  analogies  more  or  less  striking,  parallelisms 
and  antagonisms.     Its  colours  are  suited  to  its  shapes,*  and  its 

*  Dr.  Dickie  has  discovered  the  following  co-ordinated  facts  in  regard  to  the  rela- 
tion between  form  and  colour  in  plants  — I.  In  regular  corollae  (polypetalous  and 
gamopetalous)  colour  is  uniformly  distributed,  whatever  be  the  number  of  colours 


134  WISDOM  DISPLAYED  IN  THE 

forms  to  the  position  in  which  they  are  placed ;  and  with  a 
higher  than  human  art,  it  weaves  its  divers-colonred  warp  and 
woof  into  figures  of  exquisite  grace  and  beauty.  It  has  circles, 
as  well  as  straight  lines,  and  curves  of  all  variety  of  sweeps ; 
and  in  its  movements  there  are  turnings  and  windings  as  grace- 
ful as  those  of  the  dance.  Its  very  forces  are  orderly,  being 
according  to  the  reciprocal  of  the  square  of  the  distance  or  some 
other  rule,  and  some  of  them  being  polar,  or  opposite  forces  in 
opposite  directions.  Philosophers  and  artists  have  sought  to 
determine  the  line  of  beauty,  but  this  attempt  has  been  futile ; 
for  there  are  numberless  lines  of  beauty,  and  there  is  a  beauty 
which  does  not  arise  from  lines  at  all,  but  from  the  vast  number 
of  other  agents  which  nature  employs  for  producing  its  order 
and  accomplishing  its  beneficent  designs.  The  order  of  nature 
is  undoubtedly  a  systematic  order ;  but  it  is  like  the  waving 
lines  which  we  admire  so  much  in  the  works  of  God  and  the 
higher  efforts  of  imitative  art — its  indescribable  variety  is  an 
essential  part  of  the  system. 

Music  is  not  the  only  harmony  to  be  found  in  nature.  Poetry 
derives  its  power  to  please  from  the  love  of  harmony  which  is  so 
deep  in  our  natures ;  and  that  not  merely  in  the  ear,  for  the 
deaf  can  enjoy  it,  but  in  the  very  soul.  The  symbolism  of  the 
ancient  sages,  the  parallelisms  and  antagonisms  of  the  Hebrews 
and  of  the  East,  the  nicely  mixed  long  and  short  syllables  of 
the  Greeks  and  Romans,  the  correspondence  of  accents  and  the 
definite  syllables  and  metres  among  the  modern  nations  of 
Europe — all  these  are  suited  to  principles  in  man's  nature,  and 
show  how  diversified  poetry  may  be,  and  yet  be  true  poetry, 
awakening  an  echo  in  every  man's  bosom.  We  like  not  the 
rivalry  between  the  various  schools — the  Eastern  school,  the 
Greek  school,  and  the  French  school,  or  the  Romantic  school, 

present.  II.  Irregularity  of  corolla  is  associated  with  irregular  distribution  of 
colour.  The  odd  lobe  has  the  most  intense  colour  when  there  is  only  one  colour, 
and,  generally,  the  odd  lobe  is  most  varied  in  colour.  III.  Different  forms  of 
corolla  in  the  same  inflorescence  often  present  differences  of  colour,  but  all  of  the 
same  form  agree  in  colour.  Thus,  in  compositaj,  where  there  are  two  colours, 
the  flowers  of  the  centre  have  generally  one  colour  of  uniform  intensity,  and  those 
of  the  circumference  ngrce  in  colour  also.  Dr.  D.  thinks  that,  in  comparing  earlier 
geological  epochs  with  the  present,  we  find  the  floral  organs  exhibiting  greater 
richness  in  size,  form,  and  colour,  as  we  approach  the  sera  when  man  appears. 
(Taper  Edin.  Bot.  Soc,  in  Annals  of  Nat.  His.  Dec.  1854.) 


PREVALENCE  OF  GENERAL  LAWS.  135 

the  Artistic  school,  and  the  Lake  school  in  our  own  country — 
for  all  these  schools  speak  to  symphonies  in  the  human  soul. 
But  there  are  harmonies  in  the  works  of  God  infinitely  more 
varied  and  full,  and  in  still  more  exquisite  adaptation  to  our 
nature,  than  those  of  poetry.  There  are  symbols  employed  in 
the  works,  as  well  as  by  the  prophets  of  God,  as  when  the  ant 
teaches  us  industry,  and  the  regular  periods  of  the  sun  and  other 
celestial  bodies  show  us  the  propriety  of  method  ;  or  when  the 
fertility  of  the  ground  reminds  us  that  we  should  bring  forth 
fruit  unto  God  ;  and  when  the  fading  leaf  tells  us  that  we, 
too,  shall  soon  wither  and  be  blown  away.  What  wonderful 
analogies  and  conjunctions  and  antagonisms,  expected  and 
unexpected,  does  nature  disclose  in  the  revolving  seasons,  in 
alternating  sunshine  and  shade,  light  and  darkness,  in  the  co- 
incidences of  Divine  providence,  in  prosperity  and  adversity,  the 
hill  and  valley,  the  level  plain  and  rugged  steep,  the  storm  and 
calm  we  meet  with  in  the  journey  of  life !  The  double,  triple, 
quadruple,  and  quintuple  forms  that  abound  in  the  works  of 
God,  furnish  a  greater  diversity  than  the  dimeters,  trimeters, 
quadrameters,  and  pentameters  of  the  poets.  In  providence,  as 
in  poetic  art,  we  have  the  rapid  and  the  slow — we  have  quick 
dactyls  and  long-sounding  spondees  alternating  with  each  other; 
we  have  comedy  and  tragedy,  the  laugh  of  pleasure  and  the 
wail  of  sorrow.  Though  we  do  not  regard  human  poetry  as 
merely  an  imitative  art,  for  it  is  also  a  creative  art,  and  creates 
harmonies  of  its  own,  yet  it  is  fulfilling  one  of  its  noblest  func- 
tions when  it  is  observing  and  copying  the  harmonies  of  nature. 
But  the  copies  ever  fall  beneath  the  original ;  and  there  are 
harmonies  in  the  works  of  God  which  are  beyond  the  painter's 
pencil  and  the  poet's  pen,  falling  upon  the  soul  with  a  more 
melodious  rhythm  and  a  sweeter  cadence  than  the  most  ex- 
quisite music. 

And  here  we  have  to  express  our  regret,  that  philosophers 
have  not  been  able  to  agree  upon  a  theory  of  the  foundation  of 
the  love  of  the  beautiful.  Had  we  been  in  possession  of  such  an 
established  doctrine,  we  might  have  pointed  out  many  congrui- 
ties  between  the  harmonies  of  external  nature  and  the  internal 
principle  which  leads  us  to  delight  in  the  lovely  and  sublime. 
But  we  are  unwilling  to  enter  upon  disputed  metaphysical  topics ; 
and  we  must  be  content  with  marking,  in  a  general  way,  the 


136  WISDOM  DISPLAYED  IN  THE 

correspondence  between  the  mental  taste  and  the  means  of  grati- 
fying it.  Had  there  been  no  such  taste,  much  of  the  pains 
bestowed  by  God  upon  his  works,  in  their  graceful  forms  and 
delicate  shades  of  colouring,  for  instance,  would  have  been  lost. 
Had  there  been  no  means  of  gratifying  it,  the  taste  would  have 
been  worse  than  useless ;  it  would  have  been  the  source  of  an 
exquisite  pain — for  it  would  ever  have  craved,  and  never  been 
satisfied.  In  the  beautiful  correspondence  between  the  two — 
between  the  taste  so  capable  of  enjoyment,  and  so  susceptible, 
too,  of  cultivation  and  increase,  and  the  beauties  in  nature  around 
us,  which  do  really  satisfy  the  longings  of  the  heart,  deep  and 
large  though  they  be — we  discover  how  much  God  has  multiplied 
our  more  refined  and  elevated  pleasures,  and  what  encourage- 
ments he  hath  given  us  to  pursue  them.  When  men  follow  mere 
sensual  enjoyments,  the  more  eager  their  pursuit,  they  become 
the  more  incapable  of  relishing  them.  It  is  different  with  the 
love  of  the  beautiful,  (and  also  with  tbe  love  of  the  good  ;)  the 
more  this  taste  is  exercised,  it  becomes  the  stronger,  and  the 
more  capable  of  enjoyment.  While  there  are  limits  to  tbe  one, 
and  punitive  restraints  appointed  by  God,  there  seem  to  be  no 
limits  to  the  other.  The  taste  grows  with  the  growth  of  our 
refinement ;  and  the  means  of  gratifying  it  are  large  as  our 
globe — nay,  to  sainted  beings,  may  be  wide  as  a  boundless 
universe. 

Let  us  mark,  too,  as  an  additional  proof  of  design,  the  divinely 
appointed  connexion  between  the  beneficent  and  the  beautiful. 
God  might  have  so  constituted  man  and  the  world  that  the  two 
had  been  totally  different ;  and  the  good  approved  by  our  con- 
science might  usually  or  always  have  been  repugnant  to  our 
natural  tastes  and  sensibility.  We  find,  instead,  that  there  is  a 
correspondence  between  them.  Not  that  the  two  are  identical, 
or  even  parallel,  in  every  respect.  In  the  human  species,  the 
beautiful  and  the  wicked  are  not  unfrequently  combined  in  the 
same  individual.  It  is  an  illustration  of  the  schism  which  sin 
hath  introduced  into  our  nature,  and  it  is  one  of  the  means  of 
probation  by  which  God  tries  us  in  this  mixed  state  of  things. 
But  confining  our  attention  to  the  principle  about  which  we  are 
speaking — the  principle  of  order — we  find,  that  as  it  is  suited  to 
our  intelligent,  it  is  also  made  to  minister  to  the  gratification  of 
our  emotional  nature.     The  harmonies  which  aid  our  practical 


PREVALENCE  OF  GENERAL  LAWS.  137 

sagacity,  and  which  enable  science  to  rise  to  its  grand  generaliza- 
tions, also  gratify  the  taste,  and  enable  poetry  to  sing  some  of  its 
loftiest  strains.  Hence  it  is  that  the  useful,  through  the  power 
of  association,  ministers  to  the  love  of  the  beautiful.  The  sym- 
metry that  is  found  to  be  so  beneficial,  comes  at  last  to  be  loved 
for  its  own  sake  as  associated  with  the  benefits  that  flow  from  it. 
All  harmonies  come  to  be  pleasant  to  the  mind  as  connected  with 
the  idea  of  order,  and  the  blessings  which  order  diffuses.*  Not 
that  we  are  thereby,  as  some  imagine,  enabled  to  rid  ourselves 
of  an  intuitive  principle  of  taste  altogether.  For  even  though 
we  should  be  driven  to  acknowledge,  (which  we  do  not  acknow- 
ledge,) that  there  is  nothing  in  the  love  of  the  beautiful  but  the 
influence  of  association,  we  would,  in  the  very  susceptibility  of 
such  associations,  and  of  a  pleasure  derived  from  them,  discover 
a  natural  principle,  of  which  the  praise  belongs  to  God,  who  hath 
so  constituted  us.  And  whatever  be  our  theory  of  beauty,  we 
may  discern  in  the  prevailing  harmonies  so  suited  to  our  thirst 
for  knowledge,  so  adapted  to  our  taste  for  the  beautiful,  a  proof 
of  the  beneficence  of  God,  who  hath  formed  the  world  without  to 
awaken  echoes  in  the  soul  within  ;  and  to  promote  at  one  and  the 
same  time  the  enlargement  of  the  experience,  the  quickening  of 
the  understanding,  and  the  refinement  of  the  feelings. 

Let  us  now  collect  into  one  system  the  adaptations  which  we 

*  There  is  surely  more  than  one  kind  of  beauty.  There  is  a  physical  beauty,  as 
in  music,  harmonious  colours,  and  probably,  also  certain  forms.  There  is  a  moral 
beauty  in  certain  mental  qualities.  Between  these,  there  is  an  intellectual  beauty. 
All  these  agree  in  raising  feelings,  which,  with  not  a  few  differences,  do  so  far  re- 
semble each  other.  Confining  our  attention  to  intellectual  beauty,  it  seems  clear 
to  us  that  there  is  a  feeling  of  beauty  excited  by  the  spontaneous,  unconscious,  or 
rather  unreflective  observation  of  a  series  of  relations.  Hence  the  pleasure  which 
the  mind  feels  in  rhyme  and  rhythm,  in  balancings,  correspondences,  parallelisms, 
in  alliteration,  antithesis,  contrasts.  Hence,  too,  the  delight  experienced  by  the 
mind  in  contemplating  the  obvious  relations  of  whole  and  parts,  of  means  and  end, 
of  form,  number,  property,  which  everywhere  present  themselves  in  nature.  We 
believe  that  the  feeling  raised  becomes  more  intense  according  to  the  number  and 
variety  of  the  relations  observed,  provided  always,  that  they  are  so  obvious  that 
they  can  be  noticed  spontaneously,  and  without  any  such  intellectual  straining  as 
may  interfere  with  the  emotion.  There  is  a  special  beauty  in  unity  with  variety — 
as  seen  in  the  curve  lines,  and  compensatory  though  not  uniform  balancings  of 
nature :  and  also  in  the  varied  agents  at  work  around  us,  conspiring  to  promote 
one  end.  So  far,  then,  as  intellectual  beauty  is  concerned,  there  is  truth  in  the 
theory  of  Augustine,  that  beauty  consists  in  order  and  design,  and  in  that  of 
Hutcheson  and  Cousin,  that  it  consists  in  unity  with  variety,  and  in  that  of  Diderot, 
that  it  consists  in  relations. 


138 


WISDOM  DISPLAYED  IN  THE 


have  been  observing  separately.  Let  us  observe  first  the  in- 
ternal principles,  and  then  the  correspondence  of  the  external 
facts : — 


Internal  Principles. 

I.  The  natural  love  of  combined  va- 
riety and  sameness. 

II.  The  intuition  which  leads  us  to 
connect  cause  and  effect. 

III.  The  attainment  of  knowledge  by 
experience. 


IV.  The  faculties  that  generalize  and 
classify,  in  order  to  the  attain- 
ment of  knowledge,  (1.)  prac- 
tical, and  (2.)  scientific. 

V.  The  love  of  the  beautiful. 


External  Facts. 

I.  The  number  of  elements  sufficient 
to  produce  variety  without  con- 
fusion. 

II.  The  causal  connexion  between  all 
events. 

III.  (1.)  All  phenomena  have  a  natural 

cause. 

(2.)  Material  substances  are  so  ad- 
justed as  to  admit  of  their  act- 
ing causally. 

(3.)  Causes  are  so  adjusted  as  to 
produce  general  laws  of  succes- 
sion. 

IV.  The  principle  of  order  throughout 

the  world,  in  respect  of  number, 
form,  colour,  &c. ;  and  this  or- 
der, (1.)  palpable  and  obvious, 
(2)  varied. 

V.  (1.)  The  harmonies  in  nature. 
(2.)  These  harmonies  beneficent  as 
well  as  beautiful. 


With  such  proofs  as  these  of  the  benignity  of  law,  we  are  not 
jealous  of  the  discovery  of  it  in  the  government  of  the  world. 
We  rather  rejoice  in  every  extension  which  is  given  to  it ;  and 
feel  as  if,  by  enlarging  it,  we  were  restricting  the  supposed 
domains  of  chance,  and  widening  the  real  dominions  of  God,  and 
doing  what  civilisation  and  improving  agriculture  accomplish, 
when  they  drive  back  the  ignorance,  the  wastes  and  wilds  of  our 
country,  to  spread  knowledge,  and  order,  and  fertility  in  their 
room. 

We  are  aware,  that  when  the  existence  of  God  is  denied,  it  is 
needful  so  to  define  and  explain  the  laws  of  nature  as  to  show 
that  they  are  not  a  substitute  for  the  Divine  Being.  But  when 
we  have  established  the  existence  of  God,  we  rejoice  to  discover 
the  presence  of  law  everywhere — as  much  as  the  mariner  might 
rejoice  to  detect  the  footprints  of  human  beings  on  the  desolate 
shore  on  which  he  has  been  cast ;  for  wherever  we  find  law,  there 
we  see  the  certain  traces  of  a  lawgiver. 


PREVALENCE  OF  GENERAL  LAWS.  139 

Care  must  be  taken,  however,  in  speaking  of  laws  as  so  uni- 
versal, not  to  represent  this  plan  of  procedure  as  separating  God 
from  his  works.  We  believe  God  to  be  as  intimately  connected 
with  the  operation  of  his  hands,  as  if  he  was  doing  all  by  special 
miracle.  Every  event  is  to  be  understood  as  ordered  by  God, 
just  as  certainly  as  if  it  had  taken  place  in  a  world  in  which 
there  were  no  other  causes  than  the  Divine  volitions.  We  dis- 
cover that  the  laws  according  to  which  all  events  occur  are 
appointed  by  God  ;  we  can  farther  discover  the  exact  adaptation 
of  this  arrangement  to  the  nature  of  man  ;  and  instead  of  feeling 
less  disposed  to  see  God  in  his  works  because  of  this  constitution 
of  things,  we  are  all  the  more  inclined  to  discover,  and  when  we 
discover,  to  admire  his  wisdom  and  beneficence. 

Illustrative  Note  (c.)— DIFFERENCE  BETWEEN  PHILOSOPHICAL  OB- 
SERVATION AND  PRACTICAL  SAGACITY— RELATION  OF  SCIENCE 
AND  ART. 

The  remarks  made  may  enable  us  to  understand  the  difference  between  the 
shrewd  observer  and  the  philosopher.  The  one  notices  the  various  lesser  and 
more  obvious  laws  of  the  occurrences  in  the  world,  and  the  palpable  workings 
of  human  nature ;  while  the  other  rises  to  the  more  general  causes  from  which 
they  proceed. 

The  person  who  has  observed  the  ways  of  the  world  around  him  becomes  a  man 
of  shrewdness  and  sagacity ;  and  in  regard  to  the  pursuits  in  which  he  feels  an 
interest,  his  vision  can  penetrate  to  an  astonishing  distance,  and  with  most  singular 
accuracy.  It  is  this  quality  which  leads,  according  to  the  object  to  which  it  is 
directed,  to  distinction  in  the  competitions  of  trade,  commerce,  or  politics.  It  is 
much  the  same  talent,  directed  to  a  higher  class  of  objects,  which  produces  sagacity 
in  historical  research.  AVhen  the  observer,  endowed  with  a  spiritual  vision,  takes 
in  a  higher  class  of  laws — the  laws  of  God's  providence — his  wisdom  assumes  a 
loftier  form ;  and  from  his  knowledge  of  the  Divine  ways,  he  can  look  still  farther 
into  the  future.  The  historian,  Dr.  M'Crie,*  occurs  to  us  as  an  eminent  instance  of 
an  individual  possessing  this  species  of  sagacity,  and  able  to  anticipate  the  events 
that  are  to  come,  from  a  knowledge  of  the  Divine  ways  in  times  past  Proverbs 
of  a  worldly  or  a  divine  character  are  the  forms  in  which  the  more  certain  of  the 
general  observations  of  which  we  are  speaking  find  their  appropriate  expression. 
Wise  sayings,  apothegms,  maxims,  and  pointed  remarks,  are  the  forms  which  others 
assume  ;  while  thousands  floating  in  the  mind,  and  used  daily  by  the  sagacious, 
have  never  been  expressed,  and  never  will  be  expressed  in  words. 

The  philosopher  is  distinguished  from  these  shrewd  observers,  in  so  far  as  he 
seeks  for  the  causes  of  the  general  phenomena  which  present  themselves  in  the 
actual  world.  Herein  is  Adam  Smith  distinguished  from  the  practical  statesman 
and  skilful  politician.  Herein  are  philosophic  historians,  such  as  Montesquieu  ; 
Robertson,  in  his  Introduction  to  Charles  V. ;  Guizot,  in  his  works  on  Modern 
Civilisation  ;  and  the  speculatists  of  Germany,  who  arrange  all  events  into  epochs, 

*  See  his  Life  by  his  Son. 


140  ILLUSTRATIVE  NOTE. 

— herein  are  these  distinguished  from  the  mere  recorders  of  events,  such  as  the 
ancient  chroniclers,  and  from  that  pictorial  school  which  claims  Sir  Walter  Scott 
for  its  founder. 

In  the  common  transactions  of  life,  the  power  of  shrewd  observation  is  infinitely 
more  useful  than  philosophy.  We  know  not  that  Adam  Smith  could  have  been 
prime  minister  of  Great  Britain,  though  his  writings  have  determined  the  destinies 
of  more  than  one  cabinet.  On  the  other  hand,  the  views  of  the  enlightened  philo- 
sopher will  be  found,  in  the  end,  not  only  to  be  the  grander  but  the  more  useful, 
for  he  proceeds  on  causes  extensively  or  universally  operative.  The  genius  of 
Adam  Smith  and  Bui'ke  will  ultimately  exercise  a  greater  sway  upon  the  laws  of 
the  kingdom,  and  the  sentiments  of  the  inhabitants,  than  the  practical  wisdom  ot 
Pitt  and  Fox. 

It  may  be  expected,  that  the  man  whose  range  of  vision  is  confined,  should, 
within  his  own  field,  be  shrewder  than  others  whose  eyes  have  been  wandering 
over  a  larger  surface.  He  Who  has  never  passed  beyond  his  native  valley  will 
anticipate  the  events  that  are  immediately  to  occur  in  it  more  accurately  than  the 
individual  who  has  visited  every  quarter  of  the  globe.  The  telescope  cannot  be 
used  in  looking  at  the  blood-vessels  of  an  insect.  On  the  other  hand,  the  micro- 
scope cannot  be  employed  in  resolving  the  nebulas  of  the  heavens  into  stars.  The 
eye  that  is  exquisitely  formed  for  observing  objects  which  are  small  and  near,  sees 
large  and  distant  objects  dimly  and  confusedly.  The  observer  who  is  sharp 
enough  in  his  own  little  field,  falls  into  innumerable  blunders  when  he  would 
utter  general  truths  bearing  a  reference  to  the  world  and  mankind  at  large.  The 
wisdom  of  the  .shrewdest  observer  of  men  and  manners  in  his  own  age  appears 
very  contracted  to  the  student  of  universal  history.  The  latter  is  apt  to  forget 
that  even  his  wisdom  appears  narrow  and  short-sighted  to  the  person  who  measures 
all  things  on  the  scale  of  eternity.  It  is  the  privilege  of  the  philosopher,  rising 
above  the  widest  observer  on  the  common  elevations  of  the  earth,  to  contemplate, 
as  from  a  mountain  eminence,  the  general  shape  and  direction  of  all  events.  But 
rising  far  higher,  the  religious  philosopher,  contemplating  these  causes  in  the  Divine 
mind,  sees,  as  from  the  battlements  of  heaven,  earth  and  time  with  all  their  revo- 
lutions spread  out  beneath  him. 

These  principles  also  illustrate  the  relation  between  science  and  art.  It  is 
well  known  that  art  has  in  general  preceded  science.  There  were  bleaching, 
dyeing,  and  tanning,  and  artificers  in  copper  and  iron,  before  there  was  chemistry 
to  explain  the  processes  used.  Men  made  wine  before  there  was  any  theory  of 
fermentation ;  and  glass  and  porcelain  were  manufactured  before  the  nature  of 
alkalis  and  earths  had  been  determined.  The  pyramids  of  Nubia  and  Egypt,  the 
palaces  and  sculptured  slabs  of  Nineveh,  the  cyclopean  walls  of  Italy  and  Greece, 
the  obelisks  and  temples  of  India,  the  cromlechs  and  druidical  circles  of  countries 
formerly  Celtic,  all  preceded  the  sciences  of  mechanics  and  architecture.*  There 
was  music  before  there  was  a  science  of  acoustics ;  and  painting,  while  yet  there 
was  no  theory  of  colours  and  perspective. 

Nor  is  it  difficult  to  account  for  all  this  on  the  principles  which  we  have  been 
developing.  By  the  beneficent  arrangements  of  God,  general  laws  available  for 
practical  purposes  can  be  discovered,  while  the  causes  that  produce  them  are 
concealed.  The  mechanic  and  artist  discover  these  general  laws,  and  turn  them 
immediately  to  the  object  which  they  contemplate — the  production  of  useful  or 
elegant  works.  They  constitute  those  first  observed  and  middle  axioms— between 
infinite  particulars  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  highest  generalizations  on  the  other — 
*  See  Wkewell's  Phil,  of  Ind.  Science,  B.  xi.  c.  viiL 


CONNEXION  OF  GOD  WITH  HIS  WORKS.  141 

on  which  Bacon  sets  such  high  value,  and  which  he  represents  as  making  "  the 
artsman  differ  from  the  inexpert."  God  has  so  disposed  the  agents  of  nature,  that 
these  laws  are  uniform ;  so  long  as  they  are  so,  the  artist  may  use  them  without 
at  all  inquiring  into  the  cause ;  and  all  the  while  no  attempts  may  have  been 
made  to  discover  the  cause,  or  science  may  have  been  defeated  in  all  its  attempts 
to  find  it.  At  the  same  time,  it  should  be  borne  in  mind,  that  when  science  suc- 
ceeds in  discovering  the  true  cause,  it  may  be  the  means  of  multiplying  the 
resources,  and  widening  indefinitely  the  dominion  of  art. 

As  a  practical  inference  from  the  train  of  reflection  pursued  in  these  corollaries, 
let  us  mark  that  there  are  obvious  and  palpable  laws  which  God  hath  placed 
before  us,  both  in  regard  to  the  workings  of  the  human  soul  and  the  mechanism 
of  nature,  and  all  to  aid  us  in  the  accomplishment  of  important  practical  ends. 
All  men  are  not  intended  to  be  philosophers,  but  all  are  expected  to  be  practically 
useful ;  and  hence,  while  there  are  only  partial  aids  to  science,  there  are  universal 
aids  to  industry  and  to  a  benevolent  activity.  The  philosopher,  when  he  is  baffled 
in  some  of  his  researches  into  more  recondite  causes,  should,  in  the  spirit  of  a  true 
philosophy,  comfort  himself  with  the  thought  that  mankind  can  accomplish  so 
many  important  ends,  even  while  these  causes  are  yet  undiscovered. 


SECT.  V. — CONNEXION  OF  GOD  WITH  HIS  WORKS. 

Physical  inquirers,  in  prosecuting  their  method  of  induction, 
look  upon  all  things  from  a  particular  point  of  view — they  look 
at  them  from  the  earth  and  from  below,  and  their  views  are  in 
consequence,  to  some  extent,  narrow  and  contracted.  In  this 
Treatise,  without  departing  from  the  same  method  of  induction, 
we  may,  after  having  arrived  at  the  knowledge  of  the  existence 
of  God,  look  at  all  things  from  another  and  a  higher  point  of 
view — we  may  look  at  them,  from  time  to  time,  from  above. 
Astronomers  must  begin  their  investigations  by  taking  the  earth 
as  their  basis,  and  regarding  it  as  their  centre  ;  but  after  having 
determined  in  this  way  that  the  sun  is  the  true  centre,  they 
change  their  point  of  view,  and  look  on  the  whole  planetary 
system  from  the  sun  as  the  central  point,  and  their  measure- 
ments become  heliocentric  instead  of  geocentric.  All  inquirers 
into  heavenly  truth,  proceeding  in  an  inductive  method,  must, 
like  astronomers,  begin  with  the  earth ;  but  after  having  pro- 
ceeded a  certain  length,  and  determined  that  there  is  a  God, 
they  may  view  all  things  as  from  heaven.  It  is  when  surveyed 
from  both  points  that  we  attain  the  clearest  idea  of  their  exact 
nature  and  relation  one  to  another,  and  to  God. 

The  finite  cannot  comprehend  the  infinite,  and  so  no  man 
should  presume  to  point  out  all  the  ways  in  which  a  God  of 


142  CONNEXION  OF  GOD  WITH  HIS  WOKKS. 

unbounded  resources  might  govern  the  universe.  According  to 
the  well-known  Theodicee  of  Leibnitz,  God  had  had  before  him, 
in  the  depths  of  eternity,  an  infinite  number  of  possible  worlds, 
and  out  of  these  selected  the  one  which  was  most  beneficent, 
upon  the  whole,  and  this  though  it  comprised  within  it  certain 
incidental  but  necessary  evils,  not  found  in  other  possible  worlds, 
which,  however,  had  not  the  same  amount  of  good.  Whatever 
may  be  thought  of  this  ingenious  speculation,  it  is  evident  that 
God  might  have  governed  the  universe  in  a  different  mode  from 
that  actually  employed.  It  is  conceivable,  in  particular,  that 
he  might  have  ordered  the  affairs  of  this  world  in  some  other 
way  than  by  the  method  of  general  laws. 

Superficial  thinkers,  disposed  to  materialism  and  atheism,  are 
apt  to  conclude  that  there  is  a  necessity  of  some  kind  for  the 
existence  of  these  laws.  But  we  have  only  to  view  this  world 
from  the  point  from  which  God  surveyed  it  at  its  creation,  to 
discover  that  it  was  at  least  possible  for  God  to  act  after  a 
different  method.  The  determination  to  govern  the  world  by 
general  laws  was  an  act  of  the  Divine  mind,  swayed  by  all-wise 
reasons  and  motives,  and  not  at  all  by  stern  necessity. 

It  does  not  even  appear  that,  in  selecting  such  a  method,  God 
could  have  been  influenced  by  considerations  of  convenience. 
On  a  cursory  view,  we  might  be  tempted  to  conclude  that  God 
must  have  adopted  such  a  mode  of  operation  in  order  to  lighten 
the  burden  of  his  government.  But  in  drawing  this  inference, 
we  proceed  on  ideas  derived  from  human  weakness.  The  in- 
genious workman  constructs  a  machine,  and  then  leaves  it  to 
itself ;  and  we  leap  to  the  conclusion  that,  after  having  created 
and  adjusted  the  world,  God  consigned  it  to  its  own  operation. 
But  the  two  cases,  including  the  parties  employed  and  the  cir- 
cumstances, are  essentially  different.  The  human  workman 
forms  no  laws  or  properties  of  matter — his  whole  object  is  to 
accommodate  his  materials  to  the  existing  laws  of  nature  which 
now  accomplish  his  purposes*  He  has  discovered  that  certain 
agents  of  nature,  or,  as  we  would  rather  express  it,  certain  agents 
of  God,  will  serve  his  ends ;  he  skilfully  takes  advantage  of 
them,  and  his  work  is  done.  But  in  this  he  is  acting  merely  as 
the  traveller  or  the  merchant,  who  uses  a  particular  conveyance 

*  Ad  opera  nil  aliud  potest  homo  quam  ut  corpora  naturalia  admoveat  et  amo- 
veat,  reliqua  natura  intus  transigit. — (Nov.  Org.  Aph.  iii.) 


CONNEXION  OF  GOD  WITH  HIS  WOKKS.  143 

for  the  transmission  of  his  person  or  his  goods,  and  who  thereby, 
no  doubt,  lessens  his  own  toil,  but  not  the  total  amount  of 
labour  needful  for  the  end  effected.  The  connexion  of  God  with 
the  laws  of  his  own  appointment  is  altogether  different  from 
man's  relation  to  them.  Through  the  bountiful  arrangements 
of  God,  man  can  lessen  his  toil,  and  leave  his  works  to  nature 
and  to  God  to  conduct  them  ;  but  it  does  not  therefore  follow 
that  God  can,  or  that  he  does,  commit  his  works  to  themselves. 
Speaking  correctly  and  philosophically,  the  general  laws  of  nature 
are  just  rules  which  God  has  laid  down  for  the  regulation  of  his 
own  procedure.  It  is  not  that,  as  a  Being  omnipresent  and 
omnipotent,  ever  watchful  and  ever  active,  he  needs  those  helps 
which  man  requires  in  consequence  of  his  infirmities.  The 
Almighty  can  never  be  weighed  down  under  the  burden  of  his 
government.  He  adopts  the  mode  of  procedure  by  general 
laws,  not  for  his  own  convenience,  but  for  that  of  his  intelligent 
creatures. 

It  is  not  difficult  to  discover  the  utility  of  this  method  of 
action.  It  is  the  regularity  of  the  laws  of  nature  which  leads 
us  to  put  confidence  in  them,  and  enables  us  to  make  profitable 
use  of  them.  Without  such  order  and  uniformity  man  could 
have  no  motive  to  industry,  no  incentive  to  activity.  Disposed 
to  action,  he  would  ever  find  action  to  be  useless,  for  he  could 
not  ascertain  the  tendency,  and  much  less  the  exact  effect,  of 
any  step  taken  by  him,  or  course  of  action  adopted.  Suppose 
that,  instead  of  rising  regularly  at  a  known  time,  the  sun  were 
to  appear  and  disappear  like  a  meteor,  no  one  being  able  to  say 
where,  or  when,  or  how,  all  human  exertion  would  cease  in  a 
feeling  of  utter  hopelessness.  If,  instead  of  returning  in  a  re- 
gular manner,  the  seasons  were  to  follow  each  other  capriciously, 
so  that  spring  might  be  immediately  succeeded  by  winter,  and 
summer  preceded  by  autumn,  then  the  labour  of  the  husband- 
man would  be  at  an  end,  and  the  human  race  would  perish 
from  the  earth.  In  such  a  state  of  things  mankind  would  not 
have  sufficient  motive  to  do  such  common  acts  as  to  p.irtake  of 
food,  for  they  could  not  anticipate  that  food  might  support  them. 
With  such  a  system,  or  rather  want  of  system,  pervading  the 
world,  suspicion  and  alarm  would  reign  in  every  breast ;  man 
would  sink  into  indolence,  with  all  the  accompanying  evils  of 
reckless  audacity  and  vice ;  "  fears  would  be  in  the  way,"  and 


144  CONNEXION  OF  GOD  WITH  HIS  WORKS. 

he  would  dread  the  approach  of  danger  from  every  quarter  ;  feel 
himself  confused  as  in  a  dream,  or  lost  as  in  darkness ;  or  rather, 
after  leading  a  brief  and  troubled  existence,  he  would  disappear 
from  the  earth.  "  Now,  if  nature,"  says  Hooker,  in  a  passage 
which  we  quote  for  its  masculine  old  English,  as  well  as  the 
correctness  of  its  sentiment,*  "  should  intermit  her  course,  and 
leave  altogether,  though  it  were  but  for  a  while,  the  observation 
of  her  own  laws — if  those  principal  and  mother  elements,  whereof 
all  things  in  this  lower  world  are  made,  should  lose  the  qualities 
which  they  now  have — if  the  frame  of  that  heavenly  arch  erected 
over  our  heads  should  loose  and  dissolve  itself — if  celestial 
spheres  should  forget  their  wonted  motions,  and,  by  irregular 
volubility,  turn  themselves  any  way  as  it  might  happen — if  the 
prince  of  the  lights  of  heaven,  which  now  as  a  giant  doth  run 
his  unwearied  course,  should,  as  it  were,  through  a  languishing 
faintness,  begin  to  stand  and  to  rest  himself — if  the  moon  should 
wander  from  her  beaten  way — the  times  and  seasons  blend 
themselves  by  disordered  and  confused  mixture,  the  winds 
breathe  out  their  last  gasp,  the  clouds  yield  no  rain,  the  earth 
be  defeated  of  heavenly  influence,  the  fruits  of  the  earth  pine 
away  as  children  at  the  withered  breast  of  their  mother,  no 
longer  able  to  yield  them  relief — what  would  become  of  man 
himself,  whom  these  things  do  now  all  serve  ?" 

How  unreasonable,  then,  as  well  as  ungrateful,  the  conduct  of 
those  who  fail  to  discover  the  presence  of  God  in  his  works,  and 
that  because  of  the  existence  of  these  laws,  so  beautiful  in  them- 
selves, and  benignant  in  their  aspect  towards  us.  Every  person 
sees  that  the  blessings  which  God  lavished  upon  the  Hebrews, 
in  that  desert  which  now  supports  but  four  thousand  of  a  popu- 
lation, but  was  made  to  support  upwards  of  two  millions  and  a 
half  for  a  period  of  forty  years,  were  not  the  less,  but  all  the 
more  the  gifts  of  God,  from  the  circumstance  that  they  were 
bestowed  in  a  somewhat  regular  manner.  No  one  will  affirm 
that  the  manna  was  the  less  bountiful  proof  of  the  care  of  God, 
because,  in  order  to  suit  the  convenience  of  the  Israelites,  it  did 
not  fall  irregularly,  but  at  periodical  intervals,  and  was  gathered 
every  morning,  that  those  who  partook  of  it  might  be  strength- 
ened for  the  journey  of  the  day.  And  will  any  one  maintain 
that  our  daily  food  is  less  the  gift  of  God,  because  it  is  sent  not 

*  Eccles.  Polity,  B.  i. 


CONNEXION  OF  GOD  WITH  HIS  WORKS.  145 

at  random,  but  in  appointed  ways,  and  at  certain  seasons,  that 
we  may  be  prepared  to  receive  it  ?  Was  the  water  of  which  the 
Israelites  drank  less  beneficent  because  it  followed  them  all  the 
way  through  the  wilderness  ?  No  one  will  affirm  that  it  was : 
and  yet  there  are  persons  who  feel  as  if  they  did  not  require  to 
be  grateful  for  the  water  of  which  they  drink,  because  it  comes 
to  them  from  the  clouds  of  heaven,  and  the  fountains  which  gush 
from  the  earth. 

We  condemn  the  Hebrews  when  we  read  of  their  ingratitude, 
and  yet  we  imitate  their  conduct.  When  the  manna  first  fell, 
and  they  saw  abundance  of  food  on  the  bare  face  of  the  desert, 
gratitude  heaved  in  every  breast ;  but  how  short  a  time  elapsed 
till  they  began  to  look  upon  the  manna  in  much  the  same  light 
as  we  look  upon  the  dews  of  the  evening,  or  the  crops  in  harvest 
— as  something  regular  and  customary,  the  denial  of  which  might 
justify  complaint,  but  the  bestowal  of  which  was  not  calculated 
to  call  forth  thankfulness  !  Because  the  water  flowed  with  them 
through  all  their  journey,  so  that  the  heat  of  a  burning  sun  could 
not  exhale  it,  nor  the  thirsting  sand  of  the  desert  drink  it  up, 
just  because  it  continued  all  the  time  as  fresh  and  as  cool  as 
when  it  leapt  from  its  parent  rock,  they  came  to  regard  it  with 
as  little  wonder  as  we  do  the  stream  which  may  run  past  our 
dwelling.  The  pillar  of  cloud  hung  continually  before  them,  so 
that  the  rays  of  a  meridian  sun  could  not  dissipate  it,  nor  the 
winds  of  heaven  drive  it  away  ;  and  they  came  at  last  to  be  no 
more  grateful  for  it  than  we  usually  are  for  the  light  of  the  sun 
returning  every  morning.  Just  because  this  pillar  of  cloud  was 
kindled  into  a  pillar  of  fire  every  evening,  they  became  as  familiar 
with  it  as  we  are  with  the  stars  which  God  lights  up  nightly  in 
the  firmament.  The  younger  portion  of  the  people,  born  in  the 
desert,  and  long  accustomed  to  these  wonders,  may  have  come  to 
look  upon  them  as  altogether  natural,  and  would  no  more  be  sur- 
prised at  the  sight  of  the  fiery  pillar  casting  its  lurid  glare  upon 
the  sands,  than  we  are  with  the  meteor  that  flashes  across  the 
evening  sky.  Does  it  not  appear  as  if  it  were  the  very  fre- 
quency of  the  gift,  and  the  regularity  of  its  coming,  which  lead 
mankind  to  forget  the  Giver  ?  It  is  as  if  a  gift  were  left  every 
morning  at  our  door,  and  we  were  at  length  to  imagine  that  it 
came  alone  without  being  sent.  It  is  as  if  the  widow  whose 
meal  and  oil  were  blessed  by  the  prophet,  had  come  at  length  to 

K 


146  CONNEXION  OF  GOD  WITH  HIS  WORKS. 

imagine  that  there  was  nothing  supernatural  in  the  transaction, 
just  because  the  barrel  of  meal  did  not  waste,  and  the  cruse  of 
oil  did  not  fail. 

In  order  to  prove  that  God  is  closely  connected  with  his  works 
in  nature,  it  is  not  needful  to  determine  what  is  his  precise 
causal  connexion  with  events  which  have  also  second  causes  in 
the  heaven-endowed  properties  of  created  substances.  Does  God 
co-exist  and  co-operate  with  every  natural  cause,  the  two  being 
united  to  form  one  cause  ?  Or  do  the  natural  antecedents  them- 
selves form  the  whole  cause,  being  linked  to  the  will  of  God  only 
so  far  as  they  are  the  distant  effect  of  that  will,  as  the  first  great 
cause  of  all  things  ?  So  far  from  being  inclined  to  answer  these 
questions  in  a  dogmatic  way,  we  are  not  even  convinced  that 
these  two  exhaust  the  possible  methods  which  God  may  employ 
in  conducting  his  works,  or  that  there  may  not  be  a  third  or  a 
fourth  way,  all  available  to  God,  and  this  whether  conceivable  or 
inconceivable  by  man. 

It  has  often  been  asserted,  that  we  have  no  evidence  of  God 
being  connected  with  his  works  in  any  other  way  than  his  being 
the  first  cause  of  all  things,  the  support  on  which  the  highest 
link  in  the  chain  of  inferior  causes  hangs.  We  have  only  to  con- 
sider what  is  the  nature  of  the  argument  in  behalf  of  the  exist- 
ence of  God,  to  discover  that  this  assertion  has  no  foundation  to 
rest  on.  That  argument  has  sometimes  been  stated  as  follows — 
Every  event  has  a  cause,  and  in  tracing  up  causes  we  must  stop 
at  length  at  a  great  first  cause.  So  far  as  the  argument  assumes 
this  form,  the  assertion  which  we  are  examining  may  seem  to 
have  some  plausibility.  But  this  is  not  the  form  in  which  the 
argument  is  put  by  its  most  judicious  defenders.  The  better 
form  is — There  are  traces  of  design  in  nature  evidential  of  a 
designing  mind.  And  observe  how  this  argument  does  not  limit 
us  to  the  conception  of  God  as  a  first  link,  but  rather  inclines  us 
to  look  for  the  presence  of  the  designing  mind  wherever  there 
are  traces  of  design,  and  that  is  everywhere  throughout  the 
works  of  nature. 

There  is  a  view  prevalent  among  the  votaries  of  physical 
science,  as  to  the  connexion  of  God  with  his  works,  which  seems 
to  us  to  be  meagre  and  unsatisfactory  in  the  extreme.  It  is  con- 
ceived that,  at  some  distant  period  ia  eternity  which  cannot  be 
defined,  the  Deity,  by  a  single  act  of  his  will,  caused  the  whole 


CONNEXION  OF  GOD  WITH  HIS  WORKS.  147 

universe  to  start  forth  into  existence  ;  that  he  impressed  every 
substance  which  he  created  with  its  several  self-acting  properties ; 
and  that  he  himself  has  continued  ever  since  an  inactive  spec- 
tator.    This  view  has  always  seemed  to  us,  if  not  positively  erro- 
neous, at  least  lamentably  defective.     It  forgets  a  great  many 
more  truths  than  it  remembers.     It  forgets  that  the  omnipresent 
God  is  present  among  all  his  works ;  that  the  omniscient  God 
knoweth  all  that  is  done  ;  that  the  all-benevolent  God  feels  an 
interest  in  the  welfare  of  all  his  creatures,  at  all  places  and  at  all 
times  ;  and  that  the  holy  Governor  of  the  universe  is  ever  watch- 
ing over  all  their  actions.     If  these  other  truths  be  added,  we  do 
not  feel  such  a  repugnance  to  the  theory,  because  it  comes  now 
to  be  different  in  its  nature,  and  different  in  its  practical  im- 
pression upon  the  mind,  and  is  totally  opposed  to  the  loose  creed 
of  the  ancient  Epicureans  and  modern  infidels.     When  we  take 
these  farther  truths  into  account,  they  serve  not  only  morally  to 
counteract  the  evil  tendency  of  the  view  which  we  regard  as  so 
bare  and  heartless,  but  also  to  lead  us  to  doubt  whether  the 
theory  is  not  altogether  without  foundation.     For  if  God  is  pre- 
sent in  all  his  works,  and  interested  in  them,  is  it  reasonable  to 
suppose  that  he  is  inactive  in  the  midst  of  them  ?     Are  all  his 
other  perfections  to  be  exercised,  and  his  omnipotence  to  have 
no  room  for  exertion  ?    As  far  as  we  can  reason  on  a  theme 
which  is  so  transcendental  in  its  nature,  it  seems  highly  impro- 
bable that  God  should  have  so  constituted  everything  as  to  leave 
no  room  for  his  own  continued  action.     As  he  fills  universal 
space,  and  can  never  cease  to  love  his  own  work,  it  is  reasonable 
to  think  that  he  pervades  the  universe  as  an  active  agent.     It 
may  be  difficult  to  determine  the  precise  nature  of  his  action ; 
but,  with  no  experience  of  a  world  without  an  indwelling  God, 
we  are  inclined  to  regard  his  indwelling  in  the  actual  world  as 
essential  to  its  continued  existence  and  operation.     The  substance 
and  qualities  of  bodies  being  as  they  are,  must  ever  operate  as 
they  do ;  but  they  are  such  as  they  are  through  the  necessary 
inhabitation  of  a  Divine  Agent. 

There  is  another  view  commonly  supported  by  divines.  Jona- 
than Edwards  somewhere  illustrates  the  manner  in  which  God 
sustains  the  universe,  by  the  way  in  which  an  image  is  upheld  in 
a  mirror.  That  image  is  maintained  by  a  continual  flow  of  rays 
of  light,  each  succeeding  pencil  of  which  does  not  differ  from 


148  CONNEXION  OF  GOD  WITH  HIS  WORKS. 

that  by  which  the  image  was  at  first  produced.  He  conceives 
that  the  universe  is,  in  every  part  of  it,  supported  in  a  similar 
way  by  a  continual  succession  of  acts  of  the  Divine  will,  and 
these  not  differing  from  that  which  at  first  caused  the  world  to 
spring  into  existence.  Now,  it  may  be  safely  said  of  this  theory 
that  it  cannot  be  disproved.  No  one  will  affirm  that  an  every- 
where present  and  an  almighty  God  could  not  conduct  his  ad- 
ministration on  such  a  plan.  Several  considerations  may  be 
urged  in  support  of  it.  Had  God  not  seen  fit  to  proceed  by 
general  laws  in  the  government  of  the  world,  it  would  have  been 
acknowledged  that  every  separate  event  required  a  separate  oper- 
ation of  the  Divine  will.  And  why,  it  may  be  asked,  when  God 
sees  fit,  for  beneficent  reasons,  to  act  otherwise,  should  it  ever  be 
supposed'  that  such  Divine  agency  is  not  equally  needed  ?  It 
would  be  required,  as  is  acknowledged,  in  an  irregular  system — 
and  why  should  it  not  be  held  as  necessary  in  the  systematic 
mode  of  Divine  government  actually  employed  ? 

But  if  the  view  cannot  be  disproved,  it  may  be  doubted 
whether  it  can  be  proved  by  conclusive  evidence.  The  human 
mind  is  discussing  subjects  beyond  its  capacity,  when  determin- 
ing the  precise  causal  connexion  of  God,  as  the  first  cause,  with 
the  second  causes  which  he  hath  ordained.  Unsolved  and  un- 
solvable  questions  present  themselves  when  we  push  our  inquiries 
beyond  a  certain  limit.  How  does  He  inhabit  all  space  ? — how 
does  He  inhabit  the  same  space  which  seems  to  be  filled  with 
matter  ? — what  is  the  precise  nature  of  the  Divine  volitions  ? — 
what,  in  particular,  is  the  nature  of  the  continual  acts  of  the 
will  by  which,  according  to  Edwards,  the  universe  is  sustained 
in  every  part  of  it  ?  These  inquiries  carry  us  into  depths  into 
which  the  schoolmen  would  have  rushed  with  eagerness,  to  swim 
or  sink  to  no  purpose,  but  which  we  have  truly  no  sounding-lines 
to  fathom. 

We  are  satisfied  if  the  Epicurean  view  of  Deity,  inactive  and 
unconcerned,  be  discarded,  and  when  it  is  acknowledged  that 
God  is  ever  active,  and  benevolent  in  his  activity  ;  ever  bene- 
volent, and  active  in  his  benevolence ;  in  all  places  and  at  all 
times  the  Guardian  of  all  his  creatures,  and  the  Inspector  of  all 
their  actions. 


WISDOM  KEQDIRED  TO  GOVERN  SUCH  A  WORLD.  149 

SECT.  VI. — INFINITE  POWER  AND  WISDOM  REQUIRED  TO  GOVERN 
A  WORLD  SO  CONSTITUTED. 

There  is  wisdom  displayed,  we  have  seen,  in  the  circumstance 
that  the  world  is  governed  by  general  laws,  and  in  the  relation 
of  the  various  substances  and  laws  to  each  other.  But  the  plan, 
as  it  is  devised  by  Divine  wisdom,  requires  Divine  wisdom  to  ex- 
ecute it.  One  trembles  at  the  very  idea  of  its  execution  being 
committed  to  any  other  than  a  being  whose  intelligence  and 
resources  are  unbounded. 

Yet  we  may  for  an  instant  imagine  a  world  so  constituted 
being  committed  to  the  government  of  a  being  high  and  exalted, 
but  yet  finite — to  one  of  the  younger  gods  of  heathen  fable,  or  of 
the  angels  of  revelation.     And  when  first  set  in  motion,  it  might 
look  as  if  all  was  harmoniously  planned,  and  as  if  every  emer- 
gency had  been  provided  for.     For  a  time,  the  system  moves  on 
with  beautiful  regularity ;  but  suddenly,  and  at  some  distant 
point,  events  come  into  unexpected  contact,  then  into  violent 
collision  ;  and  evil  is  threatened  at  points  where  there  is  nothing 
to  meet  it.     Laws,  beautiful  in  themselves,  are  crossed,  acceler- 
ated, or  interrupted  by  other  laws  ;  and  thousands  of  living 
beings  in  certain  parts  of  the  world  are  left  neglected,  or  are 
placed  in  terrific  circumstances,  owing  to  some  omission  or  over- 
sight.    Disorder,  beginning  in  a  corner  which  had  been  over- 
looked, soon  spreads  in  widening  circles  to  other  districts,  or  to 
other  worlds.     The  very  compactness  of  the  connexion  in  which 
all  things  are  bound  serves  only  to  extend  the  prevailing  con- 
fusion and  misery.     Had  the  various  parts  of  the  world  not  been 
so  linked  together,  the  evil  might  have  died  and  disappeared  at 
the  place  where  it  began  its  ravages.     But  human  beings  were 
never  so  crowded  in  a  city  where  plague  has  broken  out  in 
fearful  virulence,  as  the  objects  of  this  world  are  concatenated 
by  their  various  relations  ;  and  plague  spreading  itself  through 
that  city,  till  every  district  was  infected,  is  a  picture  on  a  small 
scale  of  the  manner  in  which  evil,  once  breaking  out,  would 
propagate  itself  from  one  country  and  one  world  to  another. 
The  intelligent  creation,  as  they  surveyed  the  advancing  dis- 
order, would  be  confounded  and  dismayed  ;  and  we  can  conceive 
that  the  governor  of  the  world  would  at  last  feel  himself  terror- 
struck  in  the  survey  of  the  evil  he  was  producing. 


150  INFINITE  POWEK  AND  WISDOM  KEQUIRED 

Bat  why  should  he  not  interfere,  it  may  be  said,  to  prevent 
the  evil  ?  The  answer  is,  that,  according  to  the  principles  which 
we  have  been  developing,  every  such  interference  would  be  an 
evil,  so  far,  at  least,  as  it  proceeded  from  weakness.  For  the  in- 
telligent creatures  gather  their  experience  from  a  state  of  things 
in  which  all  events  proceed  by  general  laws  ;  and  so  far  as  these 
laws  were  interfered  with  or  suspended,  they  would  find  their 
experience  avail  them  nothing,  or  positively  misleading  them;  and 
confusion  would  spread  itself,  not  merely  in  the  physical  universe, 
but  among  all  its  now  amazed  and  awe-struck  population.  The 
world,  in  short,  would  reach  the  state  in  which  we  have  seen  a 
powerful  machine — a  steam-engine,  for  instance — with  part  of  it 
broken,  or  out  of  joint,  moving  on  more  rapidly  than  ever,  but 
now  with  an  all-destructive  energy.  The  only  resource  of  the 
governor  of  the  engine,  in  the  case  supposed,  is  to  stop  it  as  soon 
as  possible  ;  and  we  believe  that  a  finite  creature  governing  this 
world  would  soon  feel  himself  in  a  similar  condition,  and  find  it 
to  be  his  wisest  and  most  benevolent  course  to  abolish,  as  speedily 
as  possible,  the  world  which  he  was  so  misgoverning. 

We  live,  it  is  manifest,  in  the  midst  of  a  system,  every  one  part 
of  which  is  adapted  with  the  greatest  nicety  to  every  other.  We 
see  before  us  what  we  reckon  a  useless  plant ;  and  we  conclude 
that  the  species  might  be  eradicated,  and  no  evil  follow.  But  the 
conclusion  is  rash.  For  the  seed  of  that  plant  may  be  needful  to 
the  support  of  some  kind  of  bird,  or  the  root  of  it  to  some  insect ; 
that  bird  or  insect  may  serve  an  important  purpose  in  the  eco- 
nomy of  the  earth  ;  and  were  we  completely  to  root  out  that  plant 
bearing  seed  after  its  kind,  we  might  throw  the  whole  of  nature 
into  inextricable  confusion. 

How  difficult  (humanly  speaking)  to  make  every  one  arrange- 
ment of  a  universe  so  complicated,  and  yet  so  connected,  to  har- 
monize with  every  other  !  It  is  reckoned  a  proof  of  the  highest 
genius  in  a  general  to  be  able  to  make  skilful  combinations.  The 
mere  discipline  of  each  particular  regiment,  however  orderly,  and 
the  courage  of  the  troops,  however  great,  will  not  avail,  unless 
the  commander  can  marshal  and  dispose  the  forces  under  his 
control.  The  very  size  of  an  army  under  an  unskilful  leader 
(like  Xerxes)  may  only  be  the  means  of  rendering  it  more  un- 
wieldy, and  securing  it  sspeedier  defeat.  The  general  is  showing 
his  highest  qualities  when  he  can  bring  all  his  troops  into  action 


TO  GOVERN  A  WORLD  SO  CONSTITUTED.         151 

at  the  most  befitting  moment,  and  cause  them  all,  without  loss 
of  force,  to  bear  directly  or  indirectly  on  the  object  in  view. 
Every  reflecting  mind  will  acknowledge,  that,  in  like  manner, 
the  wisdom  of  God  is  peculiarly  seen  in  those  skilful  arrangements 
by  which  no  part  of  the  universe  is  useless,  and  every  part  con- 
spires to  the  accomplishment  of  the  end  intended.  What  wise 
combinations  are  needed  in  order  that  the  warTts  of  every  living 
creature  may  be  supplied  in  the  proper  time  and  way  !  Every 
one  knows  what  skill  is  required  in  order  to  provide  food  for  an 
army  marching  through  a  hostile  country.  But  we  are  compar- 
ing small  things  to  things  infinitely  great,  in  illustrating  by  this 
feeble  means,  suited  to  our  feeble  capacity,  the  task  which  can 
be  undertaken  only  by  the  Almighty,  of  providing  for  the  wants 
of  the  myriads  of  his  creatures.  Omniscience  is  necessary  to  the 
planning  of  such  a  system,  omnipotence  and  omnipresence  to  its 
execution.  The  end  must  be  seen  from  the  beginning,  and  the 
result  of  every  law  and  combination  of  laws  foreknown  and  antici- 
pated ;  and  there  must  be  a  living  agent  pervading  and  giving 
life  to  his  works  in  every  part  of  his  dominions.  When  we 
believe  that  there  is  such  a  being,  we  feel  as  if  all  were  safe  and 
secure ;  for  we  know  that  there  never  can  be  derangement  in 
works  planned  by  infinite  wisdom  and  protected  by  an  every- 
where present  and  ever  watchful  guardian.  Such  a  faith  will 
impart  a  holy  courage  even  to  the  most  timid ;  we  feel  as  if  we 
might  be  unalarmed  amid  the  conflagration  of  worlds,  and  while 
the  visible  universe  is  passing  away. 

SECT.  VII. — UNITY  OF  THE  MUNDANE  SYSTEM  ;    LIMITS  TO 

NATURAL  LAW. 

We  may  distinguish  between  the  Universe  (to  oXov)  and  the 
part  of  the  universe  with  which  we  are  connected,  and  which  we 
may  call  the  Cosmos,  including  all  that  system  of  which  the 
earth  and  visible  heavens  are  a  portion. 

Astronomers  are  apt  to  boast  that  they  give  us  a  very  en- 
larged view  of  the  universe,  when  they  tell  us  of  the  myriads  of 
stars  and  systems  of  stars,  which  fall  within  the  range  of  the 
telescope.  But  it  has  always  appeared  to  us,  that  this  whole 
system  of  suns  may  not  bear  so  great  a  relation  to  the  whole 
universe,  as  a  single  apple-tree,  or  a  single  apple,  to  a  whole 


152  UNITY  OF  THE  COSMOS. 

orchard  loaded  with  divers  fruits,  or  to  all  the  trees  en  the 
earth's  surface  ;  or  as  a  single  leaf  bears  to  the  whole  leaves  of 
a  forest,  or  to  all  the  natural  products  of  our  globe.  Beyond 
the  sidereal  heavens,  there  may  be  systems  differing  from  our 
system — from  these  clusters  of  stars — as  much  as  the  plant 
differs  from  the  stone,  or  the  animal  from  the  plant,  or  the 
mind  from  the  body  "  When  nature,"  says  Hume,  "  has  so 
entirely  diversified  her  manner  of  operation  in  this  small  globe, 
can  we  imagine  she  incessantly  copies  herself  throughout  so 
immense  a  universe  ?"*  Sir  Isaac  Newton  thinks  it  may  be 
allowed  that  God  might  make  "  worlds  of  several  sorts  in  several 
parts  of  the  universe."f  That  law  of  gravitation  which  astrono- 
mers all  but  deify,  may  turn  out,  after  all,  to  regulate  but  a 
comparatively  small  portion  of  the  bodies  that  people  universal 
space.  There  may  be  myriads  of  other  systems  as  grand  and  as 
glorious  as  ours,  regulated  by  other  laws  equally  beautiful ;  and 
manifesting,  by  their  variety,  the  infinite  riches  of  the  Divine 
perfections.  Geologists  would  enlarge  our  conceptions  of  Time 
by  unfolding  the  progressive  epochs  of  the  earth's  history.  But 
we  would  be  inclined  to  extend  our  conceptions  into  eternity, 
beyond  even  the  unnumbered  years  of  the  geologic  eras.  There 
may  have  been  other  epochs  wThich  had  come  to  a  clo^e  before 
the  history  of  our  Cosmos  began. 

But  however  this  may  be,  it  seems  as  if,  within  limited  space 
and  time,  there  is  a  distinct  compartment  of  God's  works,  which 
we  call  the  Cosmos.  This  compartment,  no  doubt,  has  points 
of  junction  with  others,  but  it  may  itself  be  separate  ;  and  it 
seems  as  if  within  it  there  is  a  system  of  uniform  laws.  The 
mountains  in  the  moon — the  apparent  sea  and  land  in  Mars — 
the  aerolites  that  fall  from  the  heavens — the  circumstance  that 
our  sun  is  a  star  in  a  particular  galaxy,  said  to  be  hastening 
towards  a  point  in  the  constellation  Hercules,  and  that  there 
are  other  and  similar  galaxies, — all  seem  to  point  to  a  homo- 
geneity in  the  bodies  which  are  to  be  found  in  knowable  space. 
The  connexion  of  the  present  state  of  the  earth  with  the  pre- 
vious changes  on  the  earth's  surface,  the  traces  in  former  epochs 
of  the  laws  that  are  still  in  operation,  and  the  prevalence  of 
homologous  forms,  show  that  there  has  been  a  uniformity  in  all 
knowable  time. 

*  Dial,  on  Nat.  Bel.,  p.  2.  t  Optics. 


UNITY  OF  THE  COSMOS.  153 

The  considerations  urged  in  the  previous  sections  show  why- 
it  is  that  there  is  a  system  of  general  laws  :  it  is  for  the  good 
of  the  intelligent  creatures,  who  attain  knowledge  by  induction. 
But  as  this  system  of  laws  reaches  through  the  whole  Cosmos, 
geological  and  astronomical,  does  it  not  seem  as  if,  throughout  its 
unmeasured  ages  and  space,  there  might  be  beings  homogeneous 
so  far  to  man  as  our  earth  and  sun  seem  to  be  homogeneous  to 
other  suns  and  planets,  and  resembling  him  in  this  respect  in 
particular,  that  they  gather  knowledge  from  experience,  pro- 
ceeding upon  invariable  general  laws  observed  by  them  ?  Are 
there  creatures  a  little  higher  than  man,  who  have  existed 
through  all  known  time,  and  who  ramble  at  pleasure  through 
all  known  space,  gathering  an  ever-increasing  knowledge  from 
the  uniform  laws  of  God  ?  To  these  questions  nature  gives  no 
very  audible  answer  ;  though  we  have  sometimes  felt  as  if  we 
heard  it  utter  certain  indistinct  whispers,  as  we  looked  into  the 
depths  adorned  by  these  rolling  stars,  and  varied  by  these  rolling 
epochs.  We  have  at  least  listened  so  long  to  the  silence  ot 
nature,  as  to  be  prepared  to  listen  with  gratitude  to  the  distinct 
voice  of  revelation,  when  it  announces  the  existence  of  angelic 
beings.  Connecting  the  physical  facts  with  the  supernatural 
intelligence,  we  feel  as  if  we  had  obtained,  on  the  one  hand,  a 
final  cause  for  the  uniformity  of  general  laws,  through  unnum- 
bered ages  and  unmeasured  space ;  and  as  if  we  were,  on  the 
other  hand,  the  better  enabled  to  entertain  an  exalted  idea  of 
those  spiritual  beings  who  excel  in  strength,  and  to  understand 
how,  in  their  unseen  excursions,  they  should  behold  and  feel  the 
deepest  interest  in  man,  who  is  closely  allied  to  them,  for  he 
was  made  a  little  lower  than  the  angels. 

The  microscope  has  shown  how  the  earth,  air,  and  water,  are 
crowded  with  sentient  being,  enjoying  and  propagating  hap- 
piness. Eevelation,  and  the  highest  philosophy,  seem  to  combine 
their  light,  to  show  that  all  time  has  been  peopled,  and  that  all 
space  is  inhabited  by  spiritual  intelligences.  We  live  in  the 
midst  of  a  world  that  we  see,  but  we  live  also  in  the  midst  of  a 
world  that  we  do  not  see.  With  that  invisible  world,  the 
spiritual  as  well  as  the  sentient,  we  may  have  numerous  rela- 
tions and  points  of  connexion — we  with  them,  and  they  with 
us,  as  parts  of  one  great  and  connected  system,  embracing  that 
portion  of  eternity  and  infinity  which  we  call  time  and  space. 


154  UNITY  OF  THE  COSMOS. 

Modem  science,  and  more  particularly  the  observations  made 
by  the  telescope,  and  the  recent  disclosures  of  long  geological 
epochs,  have  widened  on  every  side,  above  and  below,  behind 
and  before,  our  idea  of  the  universe  ;  and  man  is  magnified  in 
the  magnifying  of  his  conceptions.  But  by  so  much  as  the 
mental  exceeds  tha  material,  and  the  spiritual  the  sensible,  do 
the  discoveries  of  Divine  revelation  transcend  all  the  discoveries 
of  natural  science,  when  the  former  disclose  ten  thousand  times 
ten  thousand  and  thousands  of  thousands  of  angels  and  minis- 
tering spirits.  The  one  class  of  discoveries  tends  to  enlarge  our 
conception  of  the  universe  more  than  even  the  other  ;  for  if  the 
mind  is  enlarged  in  the  enlarged  contemplation  of  the  physical, 
how  much  more  must  it  be  elevated  by  the  contemplation  of  the 
moral  and  the  spiritual  ?  And  is  there  no  point  at  which  the 
two  sets  of  discoveries  meet  ? 

In  our  own  frame,  we  see  the  intimate  connexion  between  the 
mental  and  the  material.  Around  us  we  see  the  relation  of  har- 
monious nature  to  living  intelligence.  There  are  high  points 
in  all  inquiry  and  speculation,  at  which  the  sensible  seems  to 
land  us  in  the  supra-sensible.  There  are  places  at  which  natural 
science  seems  to  meet  with  revealed  religion, — and  as  they  meet, 
to  speak  of  intelligences  higher  than  man  and  higher  than 
nature,  but  who  may  exercise  an  influence  on  man,  and  move  in 
nature  in  accordance  with  its  laws,  which  are  adjusted  for  them 
as  for  us  ;  for  them,  so  as  not  to  interfere  with  us — and  for  us, 
so  as  not  to  interfere  with  them.  We  argue  on  a  variety  of 
grounds,  that  the  heavenly  bodies  must  be  peopled  with  sentient 
being  ;*  and  if  each  sun  and  planet  has  its  isolated  inhabitants, 

*  There  are  three  arguments  in  behalf  of  a  plurality  of  worlds.  These  are 
commonly  confounded.  There  is,  first,  the  argument  from  analogy.  This  argu- 
ment is  not  strong,  inasmuch  as  in  many  of  the  celestial  bodies,  the  analogy  fails, 
in  respect  to  the  points  most  essential  to  the  life  of  a  being  like  man.  There  is, 
secondly,  the  argument  a  priori,  or  deductive  from  the  character  of  God.  The 
objection  to  this  is,  that  the  instrument  is  too  large  to  allow  man  to  wield  it. 
Doubtless  all  bodies  serve  a  good  end,  but  are  we  entitled  to  say  what  that  end 
is  ?  Thirdly,  there  is  the  argument  from  final  cause ;  as,  for  example,  from  the 
moons  to  light  the  planets  and  the  inhabitants  of  them.  The  three  together 
afford  a  pretty  strong  ^  presumption  in  favour  of  the  heavenly  bodies  being 
inhabited,  or  what  seems  more  probable  in  the  case  of  some  of  them,  in  prepara- 
tion for  being  inhabited.  The  third  is  the  strongest,  and  under  this  head  the 
common  plan  or  homologies  running  through  all  space  and  time,  seem  to  point 
to  intelligent  beings  to  contemplate  them  through  all  space  and  time.     We  m'ay 


LIMITS  TO  NATURAL  LAW.  155 

why,  in  the  profusion  of  God's  resources  and  love,  may  there 
not  be  common  visitants  of  all  the  suns  and  all  the  planets, 
connecting  them  together  by  stronger  ties  than  all  their  physical 
bonds  ?  But  these  points  lie  on  the  very  horizon  of  man's 
vision ;  and  he  can  but  conjecture  what  may  be,  without  dog- 
matically affirming  that  he  has  discovered  what  actually  is. 

There  are  narrow  minds  which  can  never  take  in  more  than 
one  truth.  Because  natural  law  universally  prevails,  they  would 
exclude  everything  but  natural  law.  But  though  we  seem  to  be 
able  to  trace  the  operation  of  continuous  natural  agents  through 
ages  of  indefinite  number,  and  regions  of  indefinite  extent,  we 
are  not  therefore  to  limit  the  power  of  the  Omnipotent,  and 
dogmatically  affirm,  that  he  is  never  to  superinduce  upon  these 
agencies  an  immediate  operation  of  his  own  will  as  the  sole  cause 
of  the  physical  effects  produced  by  him.  On  this  subject,  we 
should  hold  ourselves  prepared  to  listen  to  that  authenticated 
experience  which  furnishes  the  only  evidence  in  favour  of  the 
prevalence  of  physical  law.  They  are  guilty  of  lamentable  in- 
consistency who  listen  to  experience  when  it  testifies  in  favour 
of  the  continuity  of  natural  law,  but  refuse  to  listen  to  that  same 
evidence  when  it  testifies  of  certain  distinguished  exceptions. 

There  is  no  fact  which  has  been  demonstrated  more  completely 
to  the  satisfaction  of  every  man  of  real  science,  than  that  there 
is  no  known  power  in  nature  capable  of  creating  a  new  species 
of  animal,  or  of  transmuting  one  species  of  animal  into  another.* 
Yet  geology  reveals,  as  among  the  most  certain  of  its  discoveries, 
the  introduction  of  new  species  of  living  creatures  at  various 
periods  in  the  history  of  the  ancient  earth.  Finding  no  cause 
among  natural  agents  fitted  to  produce  the  effect,  we  rise  to  the 
only  known  cause  capable  of  producing  it — the  fiat  of  the  Creator. 
All  who  acknowledge  the  creation  of  the  world  at  the  beginning, 
must  be  prepared  to  admit  the  possibility  of  subsequent  acts  of 
creation,  and  should  be  ready  to  believe,  on  the  production  of 
sufficient  evidence,  that  there  have  actually  been  such  acts.     A 

be  allowed  to  add,  that  the  discussions  of  Whewell,  Brewster,  and  Miller,  will 
serve  a  good  end,  especially  by  restraining  speculations  as  to  world  making  and 
world  constitutions,  and  by  showing  that  we  have  no  right  to  draw  objections  to 
Christianity  from  guesses  without  scientific  basis. 

*  See  Footprints  of  the  Creator,  by  Hugh  Miller,  a  work  distinguished  equally 
by  its  descriptive  and  ratiocinative  power. 


156  LIMITS  TO  NATUKAL  LAW. 

widely  extended  and  an  uniform  experience  testifies  that  physi- 
cal law  cannot  give  a  new  species  of  living  creature,  and  shuts 
us  up  to  the  recognition  of  the  Divine  agency  as  the  only  power 
capable  of  the  act. 

Will  any  one  venture  to  affirm,  that  the  introduction  of  new 
life  may  not  be  an  occasion  worthy  of  the  direct  action  of  the 
original  Creator,  or  an  act  beyond  the  capacity  of  any  power 
inferior  to  that  which  created  life  at  first  ?  Or  there  may  be  a 
propriety,  when  new  life  is  introduced,  that  it  should  be  seen  by 
the  intelligent  creation  to  be  an  extraordinary  act.  The  visible 
agency  of  the  Creator  in  such  an  interposition  may  be  the  means 
of  awakening  the  attention  of  the  creatures  who  observe  his 
works,  and  prepare  them  for  the  operation  of  the  new  physical 
laws.  By  such  acts,  the  Creator  may  show  that  he  is  still  to  be 
recognised  as  a  power  in  the  midst  of  other  powers  of  nature, 
as  well  as  a  power  above  them. 

If,  as  scientific  research  shows,  the  introduction  of  animal  life 
seems  to  call  for  the  energy  of  the  Governor  of  the  universe 
acting  without  an  instrument,  we  should  thereby  be  the  better 
prepared  to  believe,  when  the  needful  evidence  is  produced,  that 
there  may  be  a  similar  exercise  and  display  of  power  in  the  in- 
troduction of  new  spiritual  life.  Such  grand  interferences  may 
be  part  of  a  system  or  law  co-extensive  with  the  history  of  the 
world;  and  the  introduction  of  animal  life  in  the  ancient  animal 
economies,  may  have  a  corresponding  fact  in  the  interposition  of 
Deity  to  introduce  spiritual  life  in  the  era  of  spiritual  intelli- 
gences. The  exceptions  may  form  a  rule  or  a  law  embraced 
within  the  great  scheme  of  laws,  and  may  constitute  an  essential 
part  of  the  sublime  system  of  the  world.* 

In  all  such  cases,  there  is  only  the  temporary  and  occasional 
superinduction  of  a  cause  known  to  exist  and  to  be  capable  of 
the  acts,  though  not  usually  acting  after  that  particular  mode  of 
operation.  And  when  that  cause  is  known,  and  acknowledged 
to  be  acting  after  an  extraordinary  manner,  no  evil  can  possibly 

*  Miracles,  we  have  seen,  (note,  p.  114,)  are  not  inconsistent  with  the  intuitive 
principle  of  cause  and  effect.  We  have  now  shown  that  they  may  fall  in  with  the 
general  principle  of  order.  There  is  therefore  no  anterior  improbability  against 
them.  But  it  should  be  added,  that  they  ought  never  to  be  represented  (as  they 
have  been  of  late  by  some  persons  friendly  to  religion)  as  natural;  for  their  pecu- 
liarity is,  that  they  do  not  proceed  from  the  scheme  of  physical  powers  operating 
in  the  Cosmos,  but  from  a  supernatural  cause  known  otherwise  to  exist. 


LIMITS  TO  NATURAL  LAW.  157 

arise  from  it  in  misleading  the  intelligent  creation.  It  is  con- 
ceivable, on  the  contrary,  that  such  an  interposition  may  call 
their  attention  to  the  agency  of  the  new  life  now  introduced 
upon  the  scene.  It  will  commonly  be  found,  in  regard  to  such 
interpositions,  that  they  are  only  occasional,  and  after  long  in- 
tervals ;  that  the  miraculous  agency  is  displayed  only  on  the 
introduction  of  a  new  dispensation,  and  afterwards  gives  place 
to  the  ordinary  operation  of  law ;  or  that,  when  continued,  as 
in  the  internal  regeneration  of  fallen  humanity,  it  is  as  a  secret 
principle  unseen  by  the  world.  Such  exceptions,  when  known 
to  be  exceptions,  and  seen  to  serve  a  great  and  gracious  end, 
rather  confirm  the  general  rule,  and  are  in  no  way  inconsistent 
with  the  continuous  prevalence  of  subordinate  causes  in  the 
ordinary  course  of  the  Divine  administration. 


158  COMPLICATION  OF  NATUBE 


CHAPTER  II. 

PROVIDENCE  ;   OK,  THE  PRINCIPLE  OF  SPECIAL  ADAPTATION. 
SECT.  I. — COMPLICATION  OF  NATURE  RESULTING  IN  FORTUITIES. 

Two  great  principles  run  through  every  part  of  the  works  of 
God.  The  one  is  the  principle  of  order,  or  a  general  plan,  to 
which  every  given  object  is  conformed  with  amazing  skill.  The 
other  is  the  principle  of  special  adaptation,  by  which  each 
object,  while  formed  after  an  ideal  pattern,  is  at  the  same  time, 
and  by  an  equally  wonderful  skill,  accommodated  to  the  situa- 
tion which  it  occupies,  and  the  purpose  which  it  has  to  serve. 
In  the  organic  kingdoms  we  discover  a  type  for  every  particular 
species  of  plant  and  animal,  for  every  leaf  and  every  limb.  Mr. 
Owen  has  demonstrated  that  there  is  a  large  series  of  homolo- 
gous bones  running  through  the  whole  vertebrate  class  of  ani- 
mals, from  fishes  up  to  man.  But  Cuvier  and  Sir  C.  Bell  had 
previously  shown  that  these  bones  are  shortened  or  lengthened, 
strengthened  or  lightened,  bent  or  straightened,  to  suit  the  par- 
ticular functions  and  habits  of  every  living  creature.  We  are 
convinced  that  these  two  principles  may  be  detected  in  other 
departments  of  nature  as  well  as  the  organic.  The  science 
which  treats  of  the  one  might  be  called — were  it  not  that  the 
word  has  been  so  abused — Cosmology  ;  the  science  which  treats 
of  the  other  has  an  admirable  phrase  allotted  to  it,  in  Teleology. 

Had  our  subject  required  it,  we  might  have  shown  that  these 
principles  pervade  the  whole  of  nature  ;*  but  in  this  treatise  we 

*  In  an  article  in  the  North  British  Review,  Aug.  1851,  the  author  sought  to 
show,  (1,)  that  the  principles  of  order  and  adaptation  run  through  all  nature;  (2,) 
that  the  principle  of  order  is  suited  to  man's  intelligence ;  (3,)  that  there  is  an 
analogous  typical  system,  with  special  adaptations,  running  through  the  revealed 
dispensations  of  God.  But  this  whole  subject,  with  the  co-existence  and  correlation 
of  its  two  principles,  is  so  important  in  itself,  and  at  the  same  time  so  misunder- 
stood and  perverted,  that  the  author  proposes  to  discuss  it  in  a  separate  treatise, 
giving  the  religious  signification  of  the  late  discoveries  in  natural  history. 


EESULTING  IN  FORTUITIES.  159 

have  to  consider  them  merely  in  their  reference  to  man.  Having 
in  last  chapter  traced  the  principle  of  order,  as  assuming  the 
form  of  general  laws  to  be  contemplated  by  man,  we  are  in  this 
chapter  to  trace  the  principle  of  particular  adaptation  also  in  its 
reference  to  man,  when  it  may  be  called  the  providence  of  God. 
It  is,  in  our  view,  by  far  the  most  remarkable  characteristic  of 
man's  present  condition. 

"  It  is  quite  evident,"  says  Dr.  Brown*  "  that  even  omnipo- 
tence, which  cannot  do  what  is  contradictory,  cannot  combine 
both  advantages — the  advantage  of  regular  order  in  the  sequences 
of  nature,  and  the  advantages  of  an  uniform  adaptation  of  the 
particular  circumstances  of  the  moment  to  the  particular  cir- 
cumstances of  the  individual.  We  may  take  our  choice,  but  we 
cannot  think  of  a  combination  of  both ;  and  if,  as  is  very  ob- 
vious, the  greater  advantage  be  that  of  uniformity  of  operation, 
we  must  not  complain  of  evils  to  which  that  very  uniformity 
which  we  cannot  fail  to  prefer — if  the  option  had  been  allowed 
us — has  been  the  very  circumstance  that  gave  rise." 

We  are  not  obliged  to  take  our  choice  between  the  one  or  the 
other  of  the  two  alternatives  propounded.  The  combination 
spoken  of  as  being  beyond  human  thought  is  realized  in  the 
works  of  God;  and,  in  order  to  discover  it,  we  have  only  to 
open  our  eyes  sufficiently  wide  to  take  in  the  double  method 
which  God  employs  in  his  providence.  God  cannot  do  things 
which  are  really  -contradictory,  but  he  can  reconcile  things 
which  may  seem  to  us  to  be  contradictory.  Things  which  ap- 
pear incompatible  to  human  wisdom  are  found  in  harmonious 
union  and  co-operation  in  the  works  of  God.  It  is  in  the  happy 
combination  of  apparent  contradictions  that  we  discover  one  of 
the  most  wonderful  properties  of  the  Divine  administration. 

The  system  of  regular  laws  has  its  advantages ;  and  we  have 
been  at  pains  to  point  them  out  in  the  last  chapter.  But,  as 
Dr.  Brown  perceives,  it  has  also,  if  uncontrolled,  its  disadvan- 
tages. It  is  easy  to  conceive  what  prejudicial  effects  would  fol- 
low from  the  unbending  operation  of  natural  laws,  if  they  were 
never  curbed  or  restrained.  Every  one  of  the  laws  might  be 
good  in  itself,  and  yet  incidental  effects  might  follow,  fitted  to 
inflict  injustice  on  individuals,  and  the  direst  injury  on  society. 
The  doctrr.o  of  a  narrow  philosophy,  which  admits  nothing  but 

*  Lect.  94. 


160  COMPLICATION  OF  NATURE 

uncompromising  law,  has  always  been  felt  to  be  a  very  uncom- 
fortable one.  Truly,  it  is  little  consolation  to  the  man  disabled 
for  life  by  an  accident  which  he  could  neither  have  anticipated 
nor  prevented,  to  tell  him,  in  answer  to  the  groans  which  his 
pain  is  wringing  from  him,  that  his  calamity  occurred  through 
a  very  beautiful  law, — that  it  is  a  good  thing  that  stones  fall, 
and  that  fire  burns,  and  thus  brought  down  that  building  in  the 
ruins  of  which  he  was  found.  The  widow's  tears,  which  flow  as 
she  weeps  over  a  husband  whose  ship  has  perished  in  the  waters, 
will  not  be  dried  up  by  the  mere  observer  of  mechanical  laws 
coming  to  her  and  explaining  that  winds  blow,  and  waves  rage, 
and  that  it  is  for  the  advantage  of  mankind  that  they  should. 
To  those  who  could  bring  no  other  consolation,  the  heart  would 
respond,  "  Miserable  comforters  are  ye  all ;  ye  are  physicians  of 
no  value." 

The  mind  of  man  has  always  instinctively  recoiled  from  the 
attempts  made  to  persuade  it  that  there  is  nothing  in  the  world 
but  all-sweeping  and  unbending  general  law  ;  and  truly,  in  such 
matters  the  hearts  of  our  peasantry  have  been  wiser  than  the 
heads  of  our  philosophers.  Is  there  no  way  by  which  all  the 
advantages  arising  from  the  fixed  sequences,  and  the  regular 
courses  of  nature,  may  be  secured,  without  our  being  obliged  to 
submit  to  the  disadvantages  which  are  supposed  to  be  inherent 
in  the  system  ?  There  is  such  a  method,  we  are  convinced,  de- 
vised by  the  wisdom  of  God,  and  displayed  in  actual  operation 
in  his  Providence. 

It  is  conceivable  that  God  might  have  so  constituted  this 
world  that  there  should  have  been  nothing  but  general  laws,  few 
in  number,  and  free  from  all  complexity.  For  example,  there 
might  only  have  been  a  few  such  laws  as  those  of  universal 
gravitation,  the  results  of  which  could  have  been  calculated  with 
ease  and  certainty.  All  coming  events,  in  such  a  system,  could 
have  been  counted  on  as  confidently  as  the  position  of  the 
planets,  as  the  periodical  return  of  the  tides,  as  the  eclipses  of 
the  sun  and  moon.  But  it  is  evident,  at  the  first  glance,  that 
man  is  not  placed  in  such  a  state  of  things.  Again,  it  is  con- 
ceivable that  the  laws  of  nature  might  have  been  as  numerous 
as  they  are,  but  arranged  so  simply  as  to  combine  in  the  most 
perspicuous  and  incomplex  results.  It  is  after  this  manner,  so 
far  as  we  can  discover,  that  the  laws  of  nature  operate  in  the 


RESULTING  IN  FORTUITIES.  161 

heavens,  furnishing  an  order,  not  only  real,  but  obvious.  But  it 
is  just  as  evident  that  this  is  not  the  system  adopted  in  the 
government  of  the  earth,  in  many  of  the  departments  of  which 
there  appear  to  the  eye  of  man  only  reigning  confusion  and 
uncertainty. 

Our  scientific  inquirers,  in  investigating  the  separate  laws, 
have  not  sufficiently  attended  to  that  particular  disposition 
and  distribution  of  the  agents  of  nature,  which  necessarily 
issues  in  the  uncertainty  which  everywhere  meets  our  eye.  The 
circumstance  to  which  we  refer  arises  from  the  complication, 
and  it  gives  rise  to  the  fortuities  of  nature. 

Man  at  times  complicates  the  relations  of  natural  powers,  in 
order  to  produce  fortuity.  He  shakes,  for  instance,  the  dice- 
box,  in  order  that  neither  he  nor  any  one  else  may  be  able  to 
predict  the  die  which  is  to  cast  up.  There  is,  we  maintain,  a 
similar  complication  in  the  Divine  arrangement  of  natural 
agents,  and  all  to  produce  a  similar  end — to  surround  man  with 
events  which  are  to  him  accidental,  but  which  to  God  are 
instruments  of  government. 

We  have  seen  that  physical  nature  is  so  admirably  adjusted  as 
to  pi'oduce  a  number  of  very  beneficent  general  laws.  The 
events  occurring  in  this  orderly  manner  may  be  anticipated, 
pains  may  be  taken  for  welcoming  them  when  they  are  expected 
to  be  good,  and  of  avoiding  or  averting  them  when  they  are 
supposed  to  be  evil.  But  all  the  results  flowing  from  the  adjust- 
ment of  natural  objects  are  not  of  this  regular  character.  There 
are  others,  which,  so  far  from  being  in  accordance  with  any 
general  law,  are  rather  the  result  of  the  unexpected  crossing  and 
clashing,  contact  or  collision,  of  two  or  more  agencies.  Falling 
out  in  an  isolated,  accidental  manner,  they  cannot  possibly  be 
foreseen  by  the  greatest  human  sagacity ;  the  good  which  they 
bring  cannot  be  secured  by  human  foresight,  nor  can  the  evil 
which  they  produce  be  warded  off  by  human  vigilance. 

Not  that  we  are  to  regard  the  phenomena  now  referred  to,  as 
happening  without  a  cause.  Both  classes  of  phenomena  proceed 
from  physical  causes,  but  the  one  from  causes  so  arranged  as  to 
produce  general  effects,  and  the  other  from  causes  so  disposed  as 
to  produce  an  individual  or  isolated  result.  The  general  law  of 
cause  and  effect  is, — that  the  same  correlated  substances,  in  the 
same  relations  to  each  other,  produce  the  same  changes.     Now, 

L 


162  COMPLICATION  OF  NATURE 

in  the  case  of  the  events  that  occur  according  to  general  law,  the 
relations  continue  the  same,  or  are  made  to  recur — and  hence 
the  regularity  of  the  effects.  In  the  case  of  the  other  events, 
the  relations  change — and  hence  the  isolated  nature  of  the 
effects ;  the  same  combinations  of  circumstances,  the  same  ad- 
justment of  things,  may  never  occur  again,  and  so  as  to  produce 
precisely  the  same  results. 

Hence  it  happens,  that  even  when  the  causes  are  ascertained, 
the  results,  owing  to  the  complicated  relation  of  the  substances 
and  laws  to  one  another,  cannot  be  determined  beforehand. 
There  are  departments  of  nature  in  which  every  property  of 
matter  in  operation  has  been  discovered  by  science,  but  in  which 
it  is  absolutely  impossible,  owing  to  the  way  in  which  the  laws 
cross  each  other,  and  the  objects  are  crowded  together,  for  the 
shrewdest  sagacity  to  anticipate  the  future.  We  know  many  of 
the  causes  by  which,  the  motion  of  the  winds  is  determined,  but 
no  one  can  tell  how  these  winds  may  blow  at  any  given  time. 
Though  we  had  ascertained  all  the  laws  of  meteorology,  we  should 
not  thereby  be  nearer  the  discovery  of  the  probable  weather  at 
any  particular  time  or  place.  "  Not  one  of  the  agents,"  says 
Humboldt  in  the  Cosmos,  "  such  as  light,  heat,  the  elasticity  of 
vapours,  and  electricity,  which  perform  so  important  a  part  in 
the  aerial  ocean,  can  exercise  any  influence,  without  the  result 
produced  being  speedily  modified  by  the  simultaneous  interven- 
tion of  all  the  other  agents."  "  The  confusion  of  appearances 
often  becomes  inextricable,  and  forbids  the  hope  of  our  ever 
being  able  jto  foresee,  except  within  the  narrowest  limits,  the 
changes  of  the  atmosphere,  the  foreknowledge  of  which  possesses 
such  an  interest,  with  reference  to  the  cultivation  of  orchards 
and  fields,  to  navigation,  and,  generally,  to  the  pleasures  and 
welfare  of  mankind."  We  see  how  accident  may  abound  in  a 
world  in  which  the  operation  of  cause  and  effect  is  acknowledged 
to  be  universal. 

This  uncertainty,  meeting  us  everywhere,  appears  more  espe- 
cially in  those  departments  of  God's  works  with  which  man  is 
most  intimately  connected.  This  is  a  circumstance  worthy  of 
being  noted.  We  may  have  occasion  afterwards  to  inquire  into 
the  final  cause,  or  the  purpose  served  by  it;  meanwhile,  we  merely 
mark  the  circumstance  itself.  As  we  come  closer  to  man,  the 
elements  of  uncertainty  become  more  numerous.     How  uncertain 


RESULTING  IN  FORTUITIES.  163 

are  all  the  events  on  which  man's  bodily  and  external  welfare 
depends  !  He  is  dependent  on  the  weather,  and  it  is  so  variable 
that  its  changes  cannot  be  anticipated.  And  yet  it  is  scarcely 
more  capricious  than  the  whole  course  of  events,  prosperous  or 
adverse,  arising  from  his  fellow-men,  or  from  nature,  on  which 
his  whole  earthly  destiny  depends.  But  nowhere  is  this  com- 
plication, with  its  consequent  uncertainty,  so  strikingly  displayed 
as  in  the  constitution  of  his  bodily  frame.  The  most  wonder- 
ful and  ingenious  of  the  physical  works  of  God  on  the  earth,  it 
is  also  the  most  complex.  Every  one  part  is  so  dependent  on 
every  other,  that  the  least  derangement  (and  they  are  all  liable 
to  derangement)  in  any  one  of  its  organs  may  terminate  in  ex- 
cruciating anguish,  in  wasting  disease,  or  immediate  death.  A 
cut  is  inflicted  on  the  thumb,  and  ends  in  lock-jaw.  A  sudden 
change  takes  place  in  the  atmosphere  which  the  individual 
breathes,  and  quickens  into  life  a  malady  which  wastes  the  lungs 
and  the  frame  till  it  ends  in  dissolution.  A  particular  vital 
vessel  bursts,  and  instant  death  follows.  A  derangement  takes 
place  in  the  nerves  or  brain,  and  henceforth  the  mind  itself  reels 
and  staggers.  It  appears  that  the  uncertainty  increases  the 
nearer  we  come  to  man,  and  there  is  nothing  so  uncertain  as 
bodily  health  and  human  destiny. 

So  far  as  man  can  observe,  there  is  as  much  uncertainty  in 
many  departments  of  God's  works  as  if  there  were  no  laws  obeyed 
by  them.  The  Romans  were  not  singular  in  representing 
Fortune  as  blind,  and  worshipping  her  as  a  goddess  who  has 
extensive  sway  over  the  destinies  of  mankind.  IJot  a  few  have 
rashly  rushed  to  the  conclusion  that  God  does  not  rule  in  these 
heavens,  or  that  his  government  does  not  extend  to  the  earth.* 
Atheism,  finding  that  it  cannot  blot  out  the  Light  from  these 
heavens,  has  out  of  this  seeming  disorder  endeavoured  to  raise 
a  cloud  of  dust  that  may  conceal  it  from  the  view.  Unbelief, 
in  gloomy  waywardness,  wanders  for  ever  among  these  tangled 
woods  and  briars,  and  can  find  no  outlet  or  road  with  an  onward 
direction.  The  devout  spirit,  too,  observes  this  strange  compli- 
cation ;  and  in  doing  so,  it  wonders,  and  adores,  and  acknow- 
ledges that  even  when  the  most  likely  means  are  used,  they 
cannot  produce  the  end  contemplated  without  what  is  expres- 
sively called  the  blessing  of  Heaven. 

*  See  Lucretius,  jpassim. 


164  ILLUSTRATIVE  NOTE. 

This  prevalence  of  accident  cannot,  as  some  may  be  tempted 
to  imagine,  be  accidental.  It  is  in  the  very  constitution  of  things. 
It  is  one  of  the  most  marked  characteristics  of  the  state  of  the 
world  in  which  our  lot  is  cast.  It  is,  in  fact,  the  grand  means 
which  the  Governor  of  the  world  employs  for  the  accomplish- 
ment of  his  specific  purposes,  and  by  which  his  providence  is 
rendered  a  particular  providence,  reaching  to  the  most  minute 
incidents,  and  embracing  all  events  and  every  event.  It  is  the 
especial  instrument  employed  by  him  to  keep  man  dependent, 
and  make  him  feel  his  dependence.  A  living  writer  of  great 
genius  has  described  the  fact  of  which  we  are  seeking  to  give  an 
explanation.  "  But  there  is  a  higher  government  of  men,"  says 
Isaac  Taylor,  "  as  moral  and  religious  beings,  which  is  carried 
on  chiefly  by  means  of  the  fortuities  of  life.  Those  unforeseen 
accidents  which  so  often  control  the  lot  of  men,  constitute  a  super- 
stratum in  the  system  of  human  affairs,  wherein  peculiarly  the 
Divine  providence  holds  empire  for  the  accomplishment  of  its 
special  purposes.  It  is  from  this  hidden  and  inexhaustible  mine 
of  chances,  as  we  must  call  them,  that  the  Governor  of  the  world 
draws,  with  unfathomable  skill,  the  materials  of  his  dispensations 
towards  each  individual  of  mankind."* 

If,  in  contemplating  the  general  order  that  pervades  the  world, 
we  seemed  to  fall  in  with  beautiful  figures  rectilinear  and  circular, 
we  feel  now,  in  dealing  with  these  fortuities,  that  we  are  ascending 
to  curves  of  a  higher  order,  and  figures  of  greater  complexity  ;  or 
rather  as  if  we  had  got  an  infinitesimal  calculus,  in  which  every 
one  thing  is  ihfinitely  small,  but  in  which  the  infinite  units  pro- 
duce magnitudes  and  forces  infinitely  great.  The  curves  are 
sometimes  difficult  of  quadrature,  and  the  differentials  not  easy 
to  be  integrated ;  but  still  they  form  an  instrument  unequalled 
at  once  for  its  potency  and  its  pliability,  its  wide  extended  range, 
and  the  certainty  with  which  it  hits  the  point  at  which  it  aims. 

Illustrative  Note  (d.)— PHENOMENA  CLASSIFIED  ACCORDING  AS  THEY 
ARE  MORE  OR  LESS  COMPLICATED.— REVIEW  OF  M.  COMTE. 

The  complexity  of  nature  is  one  of  the  most  wonderful  of  its  characteristics, 
though  it  is  often  overlooked  in  the  present  day  by  persons  who  are  endeavouring 
to  discover  the  universality  of  law. 

It  is,  if  we  do  not  mistake,  this  complication  of  the  causes  and  laws  of  nature, 
taken  always  in  connexion  with  the  cognitive  and  limited  nature  of  man's  facul- 

*  Nat.  Hist,  of  Enthusiasm. 


ILLUSTRATIVE  NOTE.  165 

ties,  which  renders  it  so  imperative  on  the  part  of  the  scientific  inquirer  to  pro- 
ceed in  the  inductive  method.  Had  the  works  of  God  been  differently  disposed, 
and,  in  particular,  had  the  various  bodies  been  less  complex  in  their  relation  to 
one  another,  it  is  conceivable  that  a  different  mode  of  investigation  might  have 
been  available.  Could  the  different  properties  of  substances,  as  being  kept  clear 
and  distinct,  have  been  discovered  by  easy  and  direct  observation,  investigation 
would  have  consisted  very  much  in  inference,  and  the  deductive  method,  as  the 
most  practicable,  would  have  been  universally  employed.  It  is  the  multiplicity 
of  relations  in  the  disposition  of  the  physical  world  which  so  baffles  all  a  priori 
speculation,  and  which  compels  the  inquirer  to  begin  with  a  laborious  investiga- 
tion of  facts,  with  the  view  of  determining  the  laws  according  to  which  they 
occur,  that  thence  he  may  rise  to  a  knowledge  of  the  properties  of  the  different 
bodies.  Hence,  we  suspect,  the  necessity  for  diligent  observation  and  experiment, 
for  careful  compilation  and  co-ordination,  before  man  can  master  any  domain  in 
nature.  Had  nature  been  throughout  at  once  simple  and  clear  in  the  order  which 
it  follows,  we  cannot  see  that  there  should  have  been  such  need  of  a  laborious 
preparation.  In  such  a  state  of  things,  man  could  have  determined  beforehand 
what  nature  must  be  in  every  one  of  its  territories,  as  easily  as  the  astronomer 
can  tell  the  position  of  the  moon  or  planets  ten  or  twenty  years  hence. 

There  is  one  penetrating  (though  offensively  arrogant)  thinker  of  our  day,  who 
has  not  overlooked  this  characteristic  of  nature.  We  allude  to  M.  Auguste  Comte, 
who,  in  his  work  on  Positive  Philosophy,  has  given  a  classification  of  the  sciences, 
arranged  according  as  the  phenomena  of  which  they  treat  are  more  or  less 
simple,  or  less  or  more  complicated.* 

"  In  considering,"  he  says,  "  observable  phenomena,  we  shall  see  that  it  is  pos- 
sible to  classify  them  into  a  small  number  of  natural  categories,  disposed  in  such  a 
manner  that  the  natural  study  of  each  category  may  be  founded  on  the  principal 
laws  of  the  preceding  category,  and  become  the  foundation  of  that  which  follows. 
This  order  is  determined  by  the  degree  of  simplicity,  or  that  which  comes  to  the 
same  thing,  by  the  degree  of  generality  of  phenomena,  from  which  result  their 
mutual  dependence  and  the  greater  or  less  facility  of  studying  than.  It  is  clear, 
in  fact,  a  priori,  that  the  phenomena  which  are  the  most  simple,  those  which  com- 
plicate themselves  the  least  with  the  others,  are  also  the  most  general."!  Fol- 
lowing this  principle,  he  arranges  phenomena  into  two  great  divisions — those  that 
are  unorganized  being  the  most  simple,  and  those  that  are  organized  being  more 
complicated.  Taking  up  inorganic  nature,  he  places  (after  mathematics)  astro- 
nomy at  the  head  of  his  hierarchy  of  the  natural  sciences.  "  Astronomical 
phenomena  being  the  most  general,  the  most  simple,  the  most  abstract,  it  is 
evidently  by  the  study  of  them  that  we  ought  to  commence  natural  philosophy; 
and  the  laws  to  which  they  are  subjected  have  an  influence  on  those  of  all  other 
phenomena,  while  they  are  themselves,  on  the  other  hand,  essentially  indepen- 
dent."! He  then  goes  on  to  show  that  terrestrial  physics  is  a  more  complicated 
science  than  astronomy.  "  The  simple  movement  of  a  falling  body,  even  when  it 
is  a  solid,  presents,  in  reality,  when  we  take  into  account  all  the  determining 
circumstances,  a  subject  of  research  more  complicated  than  the  most  difficult 
question  of  astronomy. "g  Proceeding  to  terrestrial  physics,  he  shows  that  it  is 
capable  of  being  divided  into  two  parts,  according  as  we  examine  bodies  under  a 
mechanical  or  chemical  point  of  view.  Of  these  the  former  is  evidently  the 
simpler  and  more  general,  as  all  the  properties  of  matter  considered  in  physics, 

*See  Appendix  V.  on  the  Living  Writers  who  treat  op  the  Inddctive  Philosophy. 
|  VoL  i.  pp.  86,  87.  J  P.  91.  §  P.  92. 


166  ILLUSTRATIVE  NOTE. 

such  as  gravity,  reappear  along  with  other  properties  in  chemistry.  Rising  to 
organized  bodies,  he  divides  the  phenomena  which  present  themselves  into  two 
classes — those  which  relate  to  the  individual,  and  those  which  relate  to  the 
species — giving  rise  to  what  he  calls  organic  physics  and  social  physics.  As  the 
result  of  this  discussion,  philosophy  nods  itself  naturally  divided  into  six  funda- 
mental sciences,  of  which  the  succession  is  determined  by  a  subordination,  neces- 
sary and  invariable^  founded,  independently  of  all  hypothetical  opinion,  upon  the 
simple  comparison,  in  a  profound  manner,  of  the  corresponding  phenomena — 
these  are,  mathematics,  astronomy,  physics,  chemistry,  physiology,  and,  finally, 
social  physics.  The  first  considers  phenomena  the  most  general,  the  most  ab- 
stract, and  the  farthest  removed  from  humanity,  and  which  have  an  influence  on 
all  others  without  being  influenced  by  them.  The  phenomena  considered  in  the 
last  are,  on  the  contrary,  the  most  particular,  the  most  complicated,  the  most 
concrete,  the  most  directly  interesting  to  man,  and  depend  more  or  less  on  the  pre- 
ceding, without  exercising  any  influence  upon  them.  Between  these  two  extremes, 
the  degrees  of  specialty,  of  complication,  and  of  the  personality  of  phenomena,  go  on 
gradually  augmenting,  as  also  their  successive  dependence.* 

It  is  not  to  our  present  purpose  to  inquire  into  the  merits  of  this  encyclopoediacal 
division  of  the  inductive  sciences  as  compared  with  other  schemes.  We  have 
alluded  to  it  in  order  to  call  the  attention  to  the  great  truth  fixed  on  as  its  basis, 
and  to  the  place  which  this  basis  gives  to  different  natural  phenomena,  which  are 
arranged  according  as  they  are  less  or  more  complicated,  farther  from  or  nearer  to 
humanity. 

There  are  certain  phenomena  so  simple  and  so  little  complicated,  that  science, 
without  much  difficulty,  arranges  them  into  a  system.  In  these  departments  of 
nature,  science  first  made  progress,  and  has  continued  to  this  day  to  make  the 
greatest  progress.  In  other  parts  of  the  works  of  God,  the  phenomena  are  more 
involved  in  their  relations,  and  in  them  physical  inquiry  has  made  the  latest  and 
the  least  advancement.  It  is  owing  to  this  difference  of  complication  that 
astronomy  and  physics  have  made  great  progress  when  compared  with  the  phy- 
siology of  plants  and  animals.  In  some  of  the  departments  of  the  sciences  which 
deal  with  more  complex  data,  M.  Comte  acknowledges  that  it  will  be  difficult  or 
impossible  ever  to  arrive  at  clearly  defined  laws. 

The  grand  aim  of  science  he  states  to  be  the  discovery  of  laws,  and,  through 
this  discovery,  the  attainment  of  foresight,  and  the  power  of  acting  on  nature. 
"  We  ought  to  conceive  the  study  of  nature  as  destined  to  furnish  the  true  rational 
basis  of  the  action  of  man  upon  nature,  because  the  knowledge  of  the  laws  of 
phenomena,  of  which  the  invariable  result  is  foresight,  and  it  alone,  can  enable 
ns  in  active  life  to  modify  them,  the  one  by  the  other,  to  our  advantage.     In 

Short,  SCIENCE  WHENCE  FORESIGHT,    FORESIGHT  WHENCE   ACTION— Such  IS  the  simple 

formula  which  expresses  in  the  simplest  manner  the  general  relation  of  science 
and  art."f  In  the  least  complicated  departments  of  nature,  science  having 
discovered  a  number  of  laws,  gives  considerable  scope  to  foresight ;  and  man  is 
enabled  to  adapt  his  actions  to  what  he  foresees.  In  other  fields  in  which  the 
arrangements  are  more  complicated,  foreknowledge,  and  the  power  which  fore- 
knowledge confers,  have  as  yet  a  very  limited  range  ;  and  there  are  parts  of  God's 
works,  in  regard  to  which  it  may  be  doubted  whether  science  will  ever  be  able  to 
discover  the  assemblage  of  laws,  or  art  to  turn  them  to  any  profitable  use. 

The  complication  of  nature,  so  baffling  to  human  investigation,  appears  most 
strikingly  in  organized  bodies.    M.  Comte  says—"  Every  property  of  an  organized 
*  Pp.  96,  97.  j  Vol.  i.  pp.  62,  63. 


ILLUSTRATIVE  NOTE.  167 

body,  be  it  geometric,  be  it  mechanical,  be  it  chemical,  be  it  vital,  is  subjected  in 
its  quantity  to  immense  numerical  variations  altogether  irregular,  which  succeed 
each  other  at  the  briefest  intervals,  under  the  influence  of  a  host  of  circumstances 
exterior  and  interior,  and  themselves  variable  in  such  a  way  that  all  idea  of  fixed 
numbers,  and  in  consequence  of  mathematical  laws,  such  as  we  can  hope  to  find, 
imply  in  reality  a  contradiction  to  the  special  nature  of  the  class  of  phenomena. 
Thus,  when  we  wish  to  value  with  precision  even  the  most  simple  qualities  of  a 
living  being — for  example,  its  mean  density,  or  that  of  one  of  its  principal  parts, 
its  temperature,  the  force  of  its  internal  circulation,  the  proportion  of  immediate 
elements  that  compose  its  solids  or  its  fluids,  the  quantity  of  oxygen  which  it  con- 
sumes in  a  given  time,  the  mass  of  its  absorptions  and  continual  exhalations,  &c, 
and,  still  more,  the  energy  of  its  muscular  powers,  the  intensity  of  its  impressions, 
&c — it  is  needful,  not  only,  as  is  evident,  to  make  for  each  of  these  results  as 
many  observations  as  there  are  species  or  races,  and  of  varieties  in  each  species — 
we  need  farther  to  measure  the  changes,  not  inconsiderable,  which  this  quantity 
experiences  in  passing  from  one  individual  to  another ;  and  in  reference  to  the 
same  individual,  according  to  its  age,  its  state  of  health  or  disease,  its  internal 
disposition,  and  the  circumstances  of  all  kinds,  and  these  incessantly  changing, 
under  the  influence  of  which  it  finds  itself  placed,  such  as  the  constitution  of  the 
atmosphere,  &c.  It  is  the  same,  in  a  still  higher  degree,  with  social  phenomena, 
which  present  a  yet  greater  complication,  and  by  consequence  a  yet  greater 
variableness."  He  goes  on  to  say,  "  that  which  engenders  this  irregular  varia- 
bility of  the  effect,  is  the  great  number  of  different  agents  determining  at  the  same 
time  the  same  phenomena ;  and  from  which  it  results  in  the  most  complicated 
phenomena,  that  there  are  not  two  cases  precisely  alike.  We  have  no  occasion,  in 
order  to  find  such  a  difficulty,  to  go  to  the  phenomena  of  living  bodies.  It  presents 
itself  already  in  bodies  without  life,  when  we  consider  the  most  complex  cases — 
for  example,  in  studying  meteorological  phenomena."  This  advocate  of  the  pro- 
gress and  power  of  knowledge  is  obliged  to  admit, — "  Their  multiplicity  renders 
the  effects  as  irregularly  variable  as  if  every  cause  had  not  been  subjected  to  any 
precise  condition.''  * 

It  is  only  in  certain  departments  of  God's  works  that  we  can  ever  attain  to 
anything  like  complete  science,  to  extensive  foresight,  or  that  power  which  know- 
ledge confers.  And  let  it  be  especially  remarked  that  human  science,  and  human 
sagacity,  and  human  potency,  fail  most  in  those  parts  of  nature  with  which  man 
is  most  intimately  connected.  As  M.  Comte  again  and  again  remarks,  the 
phenomena  which  are  the  most  simple  and  general,  and  therefore  the  most  easily 
arranged  into  a  science,  are  those  "  which  are  at  the  farthest  distance  from  man,"+ 
and  the  "  farthest  removed  from  humanity."  Thus,  the  heavenly  bodies,  while 
utterly  beyond  man's  reach  or  control,  furnish  in  their  laws  and  movements  the 
easiest  conquests  to  science.  The  most  difficult  problem  in  astronomy — that  of 
the  three  bodies — is  less  complex  than  the  most  simple  terrestrial  problem.  On 
the  other  hand,  those  phenomena  which  are  the  most  complicated  are  the  nearest 
to  man,  and  the  most  directly  interesting  to  him. J  The  laws  of  chemistry,  for 
instance,  on  which  man's  sustenance  so  immediately  depends,  are  more  compli- 
cated than  the  movements  of  the  heavenly  bodies,  or  the  mere  mechanical  laws  of 
matter.  The  complication  increases  according  as  the  objects  attain  a  higher 
degree  of  organization,  and  becomes  the  greatest  of  all  in  the  bodily  frame  of  man, 
and,  in  that  frame,  in  the  nervous  system,  the  part  most  intimately  connected 
with  the  operations  of  the  mind.  When  the  social  element  is  introduced,  and 
*  Pp.  153,  156.  t  ?•  88.  t  P-  S6. 


168  PURPOSES  SERVED  BY  THE 

animals  and  mankind  are  considered  in  their  connexion  with  one  anotl  .x,  the 
complication,  and  consequently  the  difficulty,  of  attaining  foreknowledge  and 
control  over  nature  is  greatly  increased.  The  legitimate  conclusion  (not  drawn 
by  M.  Comte,  but  legitimately  drawn  from  his  observations)  is,  that  man  is  im- 
potent, in  regard  to  the  objects  whose  laics  he  can  discover,  and  that  he  is  ignorant 
and  dependent  in  regard  to  the  objects  nearest  himself,  and  icith  which  he  is  most 
intimately  con  nected. 

The  distribution  of  physical  phenomena  by  M.  Comte  will  be  found,  when  sifted, 
to  have  a  double  basis,  and  to  proceed  on  two  separate  principles.  He  arranges 
nature  according  as  it  is  less  complicated  or  more  complicated  ;  but  he  arranges 
it,  also,  according  as  it  is  more  removed  or  less  removed  from  the  control  of 
humanity.  Now,  we  cannot  discover  that  these  two  are  the  same  by  any  necessity 
in  the  nature  of  things.  They  correspond  in  fact ;  but  this  is  not  by  any  necessity, 
(though  M.  Comte  seems  to  think  so,)  but  by  the  appointment  of  God.  We  cannot 
see  how  the  phenomena  farthest  removed  from  humanity  should  necessarily  be  the 
most  simple  and  easily  determined  by  science,  nor  that  the  phenomena  with  which 
man  is  most  intimately  involved  must  needs  be  the  most  complicated.  We 
observe,  indeed,  the  converse  parallelism  of  the  two,  and  that,  in  fact,  the  most 
simple  phenomena  are  the  farthest  from  human  control,  and  that  the  phenomena 
nearest  toman,  and  most  under  his  power,  are  the  most  complicated;  but  we 
believe  that  this  parallelism  is,  by  the  special  appointment  of  the  Governor  of  the 
world,  for  a  very  special  purpose,  which  we  hope  to  discover  in  the  following 
section. 

Meanwhile,  let  us  mark  the  results  at  which  we  have  arrived  in  taking  a  survey 
of  those  domains  of  nature  which  science  investigates  in  the  hope  of  discovering 
laws.  Starting  from  astronomy,  and  thence  going  to  physics  and  chemistry,  and 
rising  from  these  to  physiology  and  social  physics,  we  are  always  coming  nearer  to 
objects  with  which  man  is  more  intimately  connected,  and  ice  find  as  ice  proceed 
that  the  objects  become  more  and  more  complicated.  And  there  are  domains  lying 
altogether  beyond  those  elaimed  by  science ;  and  these  are  still  more  complex  in 
their  nature,  and  bear  a  still  closer  relation  to  man.  There  are  phenomena  in 
which  science  never  attempts  to  discover  law — they  are  so  intricate  and  involved : 
and  these,  if  we  do  not  mistake,  furnish  the  most  potent  of  the  agents  employed 
by  God  in  the  government  of  man.  These  phenomena  we  are  seeking  in  the  text 
to  catch  as  they  fly  past  us,  and  to  submit  them  to  examination. 

SECT.  II. — PURPOSES  SERVED  BY  THE  COMPLICATION  AND  THE 
FORTUITIES  OF  NATURE. 

This  plan  of  government  is  the  means  of  accomplishing  several 
most  important  purposes. 

(1.)  It  gives  a  variety  to  the  icorks  of  God.  It  is  conceivable, 
we  have  said,  that  all  nature  might  have  been  so  arranged  that 
its  operations,  proceeding  according  to  a  few  general  laws,  could 
have  been  readily  anticipated.  And  there  might,  no  doubt,  in 
such  a  system,  have  been  much  that  was  grand  and  majestic, 
but  there  would  have  been  at  the  same  time  a  rei^nincr  sameness 
and  monotony.    There  could  have  been  no  field  for  the  imagina- 


COMPLICATION  AND  FORTUITIES  OF  NATURE.  169 

tion  and  fancy  to  sport  in,  no  object  to  call  forth  feelings  of 
wonder  and  surprise.  The  future  and  the  past,  the  heavens 
above  and  the  earth  around  us,  would  have  been  as  one  vast 
uninteresting  plain  stretching  out  before  and  behind,  on  the 
right  hand  and  on  the  left,  without  a  height  on  which  the  eye 
might  rest,  or  inviting  us  to  ascend,  that  from  its  top  we  might 
descry  new  wonders.  Man  would  not  have  been  able  to  lose 
himself  in  a  delightful  mixture  of  hill  and  valley,  of  light  and 
shadow,  of  sunshine  and  gloom  ;  nor  to  employ  himself  in  un- 
folding half-concealed  beauties,  and  diving  into  ever-opening 
grandeur  and  magnificence.  "  Eleusis,"  says  Seneca,  "  reserves 
something  for  the  second  visit  of  the  worshipper ;  so,  too,  nature 
does  not  at  once  disclose  all  her  mysteries."  But  in  such  a 
scheme  there  would  have  been  little  room  for  the  discovery  of 
developing  properties,  of  new  combinations,  and  unexpected 
scenes  bursting  on  the  view.  The  objects  presented  in  nature 
would  have  left  the  same  impression  on  the  mind  as  the  Egyp- 
tian architecture  and  sculpture,  as  the  stupendous  pyramid  and 
the  fixed  gaze  of  the  Sphinx,  by  one  glance  at  which  you  see  all 
that  you  ever  can  see.  "We  should  have  contemplated  these 
laws  ever  recurring,  with  much  the  same  feelings  as  we  look  on 
a  few  gigantic  wheels  running  their  perpetual  rounds  with  awful 
and  irresistible  power,  and  wearying  the  eye  that  gazes  upon 
them.  As  soon  as  these  obvious  laws  had  been  discovered,  all 
scientific  investigation  must  have  ceased,  because  all  has  been 
discovered  that  ever  can  be  discovered.  Every  event  would 
have  been  anticipated  before  it  happened  ;  or  rather  the  mind, 
wearied  with  sameness,  would  have  ceased  to  anticipate  the 
future,  since  that  future  could  present  nothing  which  had  not 
been  seen  before.  Persons  naturally  of  the  most  ardent  curiosity, 
and  quickest  apprehension,  would,  in  such  a  state  of  things, 
have  hastened  to  give  themselves  up  to  that  abstraction  which  is 
reckoned  so  meritorious  in  eastern  countries.  But  we  find  that 
these  evils  are  avoided,  and  nature  so  far  adapted  to  the  consti- 
tution of  man,  by  its  laws  being  very  numerous  and  diversified. 
(2.)  It  is  by  this  property  of  the  Divine  government  that  God 
brings  to  pass  each  of  his  purposes,  and  makes  general  laws 
accomplish  individual  ends.  He  has  so  distributed  and  arranged 
material  substances  that  their  laws  now  check  and  restrain,  and 
now  assist  and  strengthen  each  other.     By  this  means  he  varies 


170  PURPOSES  SERVED  BY  THE 

the  dread  uniformity  of  natural  laws,  and  arrests  at  the  proper 
time  the  prejudicial  effects  which  would  follow  from  their  un- 
bending mode  of  operation.  We  have  said  that  we  are  not 
jealous  of  the  discovery  of  law  in  the  government  of  God,  but  it 
is  because  we  have  marked  how  law  is  made  to  operate.  We 
would  be  as  jealous  of  law  as  any  man  can  be,  if  it  acted  as 
some  represent  it — we  would  be  as  jealous  of  it  as  of  mere  brute 
force  under  no  control.  We  are  not  jealous  of  the  introduction 
and  widest  extension  of  general  laws ;  for  in  their  harmonious 
adjustment,  they  acquire  a  plastic  power  which  enables  them  to 
fulfil  each  of  the  purposes  of  an  all-wise  God.  While  the  fixed 
nature  of  the  laws  gives  to  providence  its  firmness,  the  immense 
number  and  nice  adaptation  of  these  laws,  like  the  innumerable 
rings  of  a  coat-of-mail,  give  to  it  its  flexibility,  whereby  it  fits 
in  to  the  shape  and  posture  of  every  individual  man. 

A  vessel  is  launched  upon  the  ocean,  fitted,  so  far  as  human 
sagacity  can  discover,  to  reach  its  destination.  But  when  it  has 
reached  a  particular  place,  a  great  rarefaction  of  the  air  is  pro- 
duced by  heat  in  a  particular  region  of  the  world ;  the  wind 
rushes  in  to  fill  up  the  vacuum,  lashes  the  ocean  into  fury,  bears 
down  upon  the  vessel,  and  hurrying  it  furiously  along,  dashes  it 
upon  a  rock  which  is  in  the  way,  and  scatters  the  whole  crew 
upon  the  wide  waste  of  waters.  The  greater  number  perish ; 
but  some  two  or  three  are  able  to  lay  hold  of  portions  of  the 
floating  wreck,  and  are  borne  to  the  rock,  where  they  find  refuge 
till  another  ship,  opportunely  passing  by,  picks  them  up,  at  the 
very  time  when  they  were  ready  to  die  of  hunger.  Now,  it  is 
surely  conceivable  that  an  all-wise  and  an  omnipotent  God 
might  have  every  link  in  this  long  and  complicated  chain  ad- 
justed, with  the  special  view  of  bringing  about  each  of  these 
ends — the  drowning  of  some  and  the  saving  of  others,  after 
having  designedly  exposed  them  to  danger.  Nor  in  all  this 
would  there  be  any  violation  of  the  sequences  of  nature,  nor  any 
suspension  of  general  laws  ;  there  is  merely  such  a  skilful  dis- 
position as  to  secure  the  special  ends  which  God  from  the  first 
contemplated. 

(8.)  By  this  means,  too,  he  can  produce  effects  icliich  could 
not  have  followed  from  the  operation  of  the  laws  of  nature 
acting  singly.  By  their  combination  or  collision,  results  follow 
which,  in  respect  of  magnitude  and  rapidity,  far  transcend  the 


COMPLICATION  AND  FORTUITIES  OF  NATURE.  171 

power  of  any  one  property  of  matter.  This  instrument  employed 
by  God  may  be  compared  to  the  screw,  which  is  a  mechanical 
power  as  well  as  the  lever,  or  rather  it  is  a  complicated  set  ot 
levers ;  and  corresponding  to  it,  we  have  in  the  tortuous,  yet 
nicely  adjusted  arrangements  of  God,  a  potent  means  of  extract- 
ing what  would  otherwise  be  fixed,  and  of  elevating  what  is 
depressed,  and  all  for  the  convenience  and  comfort  of  man. 

By  this  agency  he  can  at  one  time  increase,  and  at  another 
time  lessen  or  completely  nullify,  the  spontaneous  efforts  of  the 
fixed  properties  of  matter.  Now  he  can  make  the  most  powerful 
agents  in  nature — such  as  wind,  and  fire,  and  disease — coincide 
and  co-operate  to  produce  effects  of  such  a  tremendous  magni- 
tude as  none  of  them  separately  could  accomplish  ;  and,  again, 
he  can  arrest  their  influence  by  counteracting  agencies,  or  rather 
by  making  them  counteract  each  other.  He  can,  for  example, 
by  a  concurrence  of  natural  laws,  bring  a  person,  who  is  in  the 
enjoyment  of  health  at  present,  to  the  very  borders  of  death  an 
hour  or  an  instant  hence  ;  and  he  can,  by  a  like  means,  suddenly 
restore  the  same,  or  another  individual,  to  health,  after  he  has 
been  compelled  to  take  a  look  into  eternity.  By  the  confluence 
of  two  or  more  streams,  he  can  bring  agencies  of  tremendous 
potency  to  bear  upon  the  production  of  a  given  effect — such  as 
a  war,  a  pestilence,  or  a  revolution  ;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  by 
drawing  aside  the  stream  into  another  channel,  he  can  arrest,  at 
any  given  instant,  the  awful  effects  that  would  otherwise  follow 
from  these  agencies,  and  save  an  individual,  a  family,  or  a 
nation,  from  evils  which  seem  ready  to  burst  upon  them. 

Let  it  be  observed  that,  in  the  method  employed  by  God,  he 
has  not  only  the  power  which  the  separate  agents  are  fitted  to 
exercise,  but  he  has  a  farther  power  derived  from  their  skilful 
arrangement,  as  now  they  combine  and  co-operate,  through  a 
long  series  of  years  or  ages,  towards  a  given  point,  acquiring 
momentum  as  they  move  on,  and  again,  as  they  come  into  col- 
lision, and  burst  with  awful  suddenness.  Now  we  find  causes 
which  have  been  silently  at  work  for  ages,  leading  to  a  complete 
change  in  the  manners,  the  customs,  and  character  of  a  nation, 
or  breaking  out,  where  the  channel  in  which  they  flow  is  full,  in 
terrible  convulsions,  upturning  society  from  its  foundations.  At 
other  times,  we  find  the  wisest  of  human  arrangements,  and  the 
results  which  mankind  were  anticipating,  according  to  the  laws 


172  PURPOSES  SERVED  BY  THE 

of  human  probability,  all  dissipated  and  confounded,  as  by  a 
spark  falling  among  combustible  materials.  If  the  event  had 
happened  a  moment  sooner,  or  a  moment  later,  no  such  effects 
would  have  followed ;  and  the  man  of  coldest  heart,  and  most 
sophisticated  head,  is  constrained  to  acknowledge  that  there  has 
been  a  providence  in  that  intervention  at  a  crisis,  which  has 
changed  the  whole  destiny  of  an  individual  or  a  community,  of 
a  nation  or  a  continent.* 

(4.)  Nor  let  it  be  forgotten  that  by  this  means  human  fore- 
sight is  lessened,  human  'power  controlled,  and  man  rendered 
dependent  on  his  Maker.  , 

There  are  domains  of  nature  in  which  man's  foresight  is  con- 
siderably extended  and  accurate,  and  other  domains  in  which 
it  is  very  limited,  or  very  dim  and  confused.  Again,  there  are 
departments  of  nature  in  which  man's  influence  is  considerable, 
and  others  which  lie  altogether  beyond  his  control,  directly  or 
indirectly.  Now,  on  comparing  these  classes  of  objects,  we  find 
them  to  have  a  cross  or  converse  relation  to  one  another.  Where 
man's  foreknowledge  is  extensive,  either  he  has  no  power,  or  his 
power  is  limited ;  and  where  his  power  might  be  exerted,  his 
foresight  is  contracted.  His  power  of  anticipating  distant  con- 
iequences,  or  of  prediction,  is  greatest  in  regard  to  astronomical 
movements,  or  great  physical  changes ;  and  here  the  agents  are 
beyond  his  control.  His  influence  can  be  exercised  over  agents 
with  which  he  is  more  nearly  connected,  as  over  his  own  bodily 
frame,  and  the  animal  and  vegetable  kingdoms ;  but  here  his 
foresight  is  restricted  within  very  narrow  limits.  He  can  draw 
out  an  astronomical  almanac  for  centuries  to  come,  but  he  can- 
not tell  in  what  state  any  one  animate  object  that  is  dear  to 
him  may  be  on  the  morrow.     He  can  tell  in  what  position  a 

*  There  was  a  great  truth  bodied  forth,  in  an  exaggerated  form,  in  Leibnitz's 
doctrine  of  pre-established  harmony.  There  are  events  having  no  connexion 
in  the  way  of  cause  and  effect,  which  are  made  to  fit  into  each  other,  and  act  in 
unison,  because  of  an  arrangement  at  the  original  constitution  of  all  things.  The 
error  of  Leibnitz  arose  from  his  carrying  out  his  monadical  theory,  and  denying 
that  there  could  not  also  be  causal  relations.  "  He  could  not  hold  that  mind 
changes  the  laws  of  matter,  or  that  matter  could  change  the  laws  of  mind." 
(Conformity  of  Faith  and  Reason.)  There  is  a  pre-established  harmony,  (1,)  in 
natural  agents  being  so  constituted  that  they  act  causally  on  each  other ;  and, 
(2,)  in  events  not  causally  connected  being  made  to  concur  and  co-operate.  The 
former  of  these  was  overlooked  by  Leibnitz.  The  two  constitute  the  true  doctrine 
of  pre-established  harmony. 


COMPLICATION  AND  FOETUITIES  OF  NATURE.  173 

satellite  of  Saturn  will  be  a  hundred  years  after  this  present 
time,  but  he  cannot  say  in  what  state  his  bodily  health  may  be 
an  hour  hence.  The  objects  within  the  range  of  man's  fore- 
sight are  placed  beyond  his  poiver •,  while  the  objects  within  his 
poiver  lie  beyond  his  foresight.  In  the  one  case,  man's  know- 
ledge increases  without  an  increase  of  his  power ;  and  in  the 
other,  his  power  is  rendered  ineffectual  by  his  want  of  know- 
ledge. By  the  one  contrivance  as  by  the  other,  while  not  shut 
out  from  knowledge  on  the  one  hand,  nor  precluded  from  activity 
on  the  other,  he  is  yet,  both  in  regard  to  his  knowledge  and 
activity,  rendered  dependent  on  the  arrangements  of  heaven. 

We  do  not  mean  to  undervalue  the  power  which  knowledge 
confers ;  but  there  are  anticipations  entertained  in  the  present 
day  on  this  subject,  which  are  destined  to  meet  with  bitter  dis- 
appointment. Knowledge  must  extend  in  one  or  other  of  two 
departments  ;  either  in  departments  of  nature  beyond  man's 
reach,  as  in  those  investigated  in  astronomy  and  natural  philo- 
sophy, or  in  departments  more  within  his  control,  and  which 
fall  under  chemistry  and  natural  history,  under  physiology  and 
political  and  social  economy.  But  so  far  as  knowledge  increases 
in  the  former,  it  brings  with  it  no  efficient  power,  for  the  objects 
are  beyond  his  influence.  He  cannot  control  the  smallest  satel- 
lite or  aerolite  in  its  course,  nor  direct  any  of  the  great  physical 
agents  of  nature.  No  doubt,  there  are  other  natural  objects 
within  his  reach — he  can  experiment  on  the  chemical  elements, 
and  make  new  dispositions  of  the  vegetable  and  animal  worlds ; 
but  then,  in  regard  to  these  agents  of  nature,  his  foreknowledge 
is  very  contracted ;  for  they  are  so  involved  one  with  another, 
that  it  would  require  a  superhuman  sagacity  from  a  knowledge 
of  the  laws  to  predict  the  actual  results.  Man  can  tell  how  fast 
the  earth  moves  in  its  orbit ;  but  his  knowledge  does  not  enable 
him  to  stay  or  hasten  it  in  its  course.  He  can  experiment  with 
the  elements  of  the  atmosphere ;  but  he  cannot  tell  how  the 
wind  may  be  blowing  at  the  close  of  his  experiment.  He  can 
reach  the  plants  and  animals  around  him,  and  so  far  modify 
them  ;  but  then  the  plant  which  he  is  training  with  such  pains 
may  die  in  the  midst  of  his  operations  ;  and  the  animated  being 
which  he  expects  to  help  him  may  be  carried  off  by  disease 
when  its  aid  is  most  required. 

Knowledge  is  power ;  and  why  is  it  power  ?  Because  it  imparts 


174  PURPOSES  SERVED  BY  THE 

foresight,  and  foresight  furnishes  control.  There  is  first  know- 
ledge, then  foresight,  and  then  action.  But  we  see  that  there 
are  barriers  both  to  the  foresight  and  to  the  action — barriers 
against  which  human  pride  may  chafe  and  rage,  but  which  it 
cannot  break  down.  Where  the  foresight  is  large,  the  action  is 
restrained  ;  and  where  the  field  of  action  is  wide,  the  foresight 
is  confined.  The  confident  expectations  of  the  power  likely  to 
accrue  from  knowledge,  could  be  realized  only  by  the  foresight 
ever  imparting  a  power  of  action,  and  by  the  power  of  action 
having  provided  for  it  an  available  foresight.  But  there  are 
limits  to  the  one  and  to  the  other ;  where  the  one  is  enlarged, 
the  other  is  confined  ;  and  where  power  is  imparted  in  the  one, 
it  is  counteracted  by  a  corresponding  weakness  in  the  other.  No 
doubt  there  is  great  room,  as  knowledge  increases,  at  once  for 
advancing  foresight  and  action ;  but  still  there  are  necessary 
limits  to  both ;  and  all  that  man  may  feel  his  dependence,  alike 
in  the  one  as  in  the  other,  on  the  government  of  God.  Human 
sagacity  and  activity  will  both  increase  as  the  world  grows  older  ; 
but  both  the  one  and  the  other  will  find  checks  raised  to  humble 
them  in  their  very  extension.  No  man  feels  his  impotence  more 
than  he  who  knows  all  the  courses  of  the  stars,  and  yet  feels 
that  he  cannot  influence  them  in  the  least  degree ;  except  it  be 
the  person  who  sees  himself  surrounded  by  agents  which  he  can 
to  some  extent  control,  but  which  in  a  far  higher  degree  control 
him,  and  disappoint  by  their  unexpected  movements  his  best 
laid  schemes.  The  farther  human  knowledge  penetrates,  it  dis- 
covers, with  a  painful  sense  of  weakness,  the  more  objects  utterly 
beyond  its  control,  and  moving  on  in  their  own  independent 
sphere.  The  greater  human  activity  becomes,  it  complicates 
the  more  the  relations  of  society,  and  the  relations  of  man  to 
the  most  capricious  of  the  agents  of  nature  ;  and  the  greater  the 
power  he  exerts,  he  feels  himself  the  more  powerless  in  the  grasp 
of  a  higher  power.  Increased  knowledge  should  make  him  bow  in 
deeper  reverence  before  infinite  knowledge  ;  and  his  own  aug- 
mented action  cause  him  to  acknowledge,  in  a  deeper  feeling  of 
helplessness,  the  irresistible  might  of  the  action  of  the  Almighty. 
We  are  now  in  circumstances  to  discover  the  advantages 
arising  from  the  mixture  of  uniformity  and  uncertainty  in  the 
operations  of  nature.  Both  serve  most  important  ends  in  the 
government  of  God.     The  one  renders  nature  steady  and  stable, 


COMPLICATION  AND  FORTUITIES  OF  NATURE.  175 

the  other  active  and  accommodating.  Without  the  certainty, 
man  would  waver  as  in  a  dream,  and  wander  as  in  a  trackless 
desert ;  without  the  unexpected  changes,  he  would  make  his 
rounds  like  the  gin-horse  in  its  circuit,  or  the  prisoner  on  his 
wheel.  Were  nature  altogether  capricious,  man  would  likewise 
become  altogether  capricious,  for  he  could  have  no  motive  to 
steadfast  action ;  again,  were  nature  altogether  fixed,  it  would 
make  man's  character  as  cold  and  formal  as  itself.  The  recur- 
rences of  nature  surround  us  by  friends  and  familiar  faces,  and 
we  feel  that  we  can  walk  with  security  and  composure  in  the 
scenes  in  which  our  Maker  has  placed  us ;  the  occurrences  of 
nature,  on  the  other  hand,  bring  us  into  contact  with  new  objects 
and  strangers,  and  quicken  our  energies  by  means  of  the  feelings 
of  curiosity  and  astonishment  which  are  awakened.  The  wisdom 
of  God  is  seen  alike  in  what  he  hath  made  fixed,  and  in  what 
he  hath  left  free.  The  regularity,  when  it  is  observed  by  man, 
is  the  means  of  his  attaining  knowledge,  scientific  and  practical ; 
while  the  events  which  we  call  accidental  enable  God  to  turn 
the  projects  of  mankind  as  he  pleases,  towards  the  fulfilment  of 
his  own  wise  and  mysterious  ends.  Without  the  uniformity 
man  would  be  absolutely  helpless  ;  without  the  contingencies,  he 
would  become  proud  and  disdainful.  If  the  progressions  of  na- 
ture induce  us  to  cherish  trust  and  confidence,  its  digressions 
constrain  us  to  entertain  a  sense  of  dependence.  By  the  one 
class  of  arrangements,  man  is  made  to  feel  security,  and  is 
prompted  to  that  industry  to  which  security  gives  scope  ;  by  the 
other,  he  is  constrained  to  feel  that  he  needs  the  blessing:  of 
heaven,  and  is  led  to  pour  out  his  soul  to  God  in  humble  suppli- 
cations. In  the  one,  we  see  how  all  is  arranged  to  suit  our 
nature  ;  and  in  the  other,  we  discover  that  we  are  as  dependent 
on  God  as  if  nothing  had  been  fixed  or  determined :  and  so  the 
one  invites  to  praise,  and  the  other  to  prayer.  It  is  by  the 
admirable  union  and  blending  of  the  two  that  man  is  encour- 
aged to  cherish  a  grateful  confidence,  and  act  upon  it,  while  at 
the  same  time  he  is  obliged  to  entertain  a  feeling  of  dependence, 
and  humble  himself  before  a  higher  power.  Let  it  be  added, 
that  while  the  one  shows  how  God  would  allure  us  to  put  confi- 
dence in  himself,  the  other  proves  that  he  puts  no  confidence  in 
us ;  and  thus,  while  the  one  should  incite  to  gratitude  and  love, 
the  other  should  awe  us  into  reverence  and  humility. 


176  PURPOSES  SERVED  BY  THE 

Nor  is  it  a  less  beautiful  provision  of  God  that  the  uniformity 
and  the  contingency  are  alike  under  the  direct  control  of  God, 
by  their  both  following  from  causes  which  he  hath  put  in  opera- 
tion. The  contingency  has  a  respect  to  man  and  not  to  God, 
with  whom  it  is  certainty.  Even  in  regard  to  the  fortuities  of 
life,  men  can  cherish  the  confidence  that  they  are  under  the 
control  of  infinite  wisdom  and  goodness.  They  may  seem  light 
as  gases  or  floating  vapours ;  but,  like  them,  wherever  they  go 
they  are  under  central  attraction,  which  keeps  them  in  their 
places  as  necessary  parts,  as  the  elastic  agents  of  the  system. 

(5.)  It  is  by  the  twofold  operation  of  these  two  grand  powers 
that  society  is  made  to  move  forward.  The  one  gives  to  society 
its  statical,  and  the  other  its  dynamical  power.  The  uniform 
laws  are  like  the  orderly  strata  produced  in  the  ancient  geo- 
logical world  throughout  long  ages,  and  by  the  peaceful  agency 
of  water.  The  contingencies,  again,  may  be  compared  to  those 
upheavals  which  have  been  produced  by  boiling  igneous  matter 
pouring  itself  from  the  bowels  of  the  earth,  and  raising  the  sedi- 
ment of  the  ocean  to  become  the  peaks  of  the  highest  mountains. 
It  seems  as  if  society  at  large  required,  as  individual  men  also 
require,  the  agency  of  both  elements.  Without  the  one  all 
would  be  bare  and  rugged,  and  without  the  other  all  would  be 
flat  and  tame.  The  result  of  both  is  existing  society,  with  its 
high  elevations  towering  over  and  sheltering  its  sequestered  vales. 
The  one,  to  vary  our  illustration,  is  the  conservative,  and  the 
other  the  reforming  principle  in  the  constitution  of  the  world. 
The  one  gives  to  it  its  equality  and  peace,  and  the  other  keeps  it 
from  stagnating  and  breeding  corruption.  The  one  is  the  centri- 
petal, and  the  other  the  centrifugal  force  ;  and  it  is  by  their  nice 
adjustment  that  the  world  moves  along  in  its  allotted  sphere. 

And  let  us  mark  how  many  of  the  great  changes  which  have 
given  life  to  society,  have  arisen  not  so  much  from  the  orderly 
and  anticipated  successions  of  events  as  from  those  that  are  un- 
expected and  fortuitous.  All  great  living  movements  have 
originated  where  mighty  rivers  rise,  in  the  midst  of  ruggedness. 
No  doubt,  there  must  have  been  antecedent  predisposing  and 
heaven-appointed  causes,  just  as  the  rains  of  heaven  supply  the 
materials,  and  the  interior  of  the  hills  the  channels,  for  the  waters 
that  gush  out  in  the  springs  among  the  mountains  ;  but  in 
themseWes  they  have  leapt  at  once  into  existence,  and  dashed 


COMPLICATION  AND  FORTUITIES  OF  NATURE.  177 

along  in  impetuous  torrents ;  the  opposition  offered  has  lashed 
them  into  turbulence,  hut  has  not  been  able  to  stem  their  pro- 
gress— nay,  it  may  only  have  been  the  means  of  imparting  to 
them  a  greater  and  more  irresistible  rapidity.  Of  this  descrip- 
tion have  been  almost  all  the  great  movements  for  good — 
religious,  political,  or  social — which  have  stirred  society.  As 
these  streams  make  progress,  all  opposition  vanishes  in  the  sense 
of  the  utter  hopelessness  of  the  effort  to  oppose  them  ;  and  they 
at  length  sweep  along  amidst  wide-spread  fertility,  which  they 
enrich  and  adorn — would  we  had  not  to  add,  often  without  the 
purity  and  energy  which  once  they  had,  and  at  last  they  lose  all 
separate  existence  as  they  expand  themselves,  and  are  absorbed 
among  other  influences,  as  in  a  great  circumambient  ocean. 

It  is  also  curious  to  observe  how,  by  an  exquisitely  balanced 
system  of  counterpoises,  these  two  elements  are  rendered  much 
the  same  in  all  ages  of  the  world,  at  all  stages  of  society,  and  in 
all  grades  of  life.  In  the  simpler  states  of  society,  as  in  the 
shepherd  life,  and  among  the  lower  and  uneducated  classes,  there 
is  less  observation  of  the  constancy  of  nature ;  but  there  is,  at 
the  same  time,  less  exposure  to  sudden  reverses,  and  the  other 
changes  produced  by  the  complication  of  human  relations.  As 
society  advances  in  civilisation,  and  men's  views  become  more 
expanded,  they  observe  more  of  the  regularity  of  law,  and  acquire 
a  greater  power  over  the  refractory  agents  of  nature ;  but  in  the 
same  proportion  their  points  of  contact  with  other  and  distant 
objects  are  multiplied,  and  as  they  become  more  independent 
in  one  respect,  they  become  more  dependent  in  others.  The 
elevated  classes  of  society  have,  no  doubt,  a  larger  prospect,  but 
they  are  exposed  to  more  dreadful  storms  than  those  who  dwell 
in  the  quieter  vales  of  human  life  ;  and  when  driven  from  their 
height,  their  fall  is  the  greater,  and,  owing  to  the  refinement  of 
their  minds,  they  feel  it  with  infinitely  greater  acuteness.  The 
event  which  the  peasant  regards  as  isolated,  and  refers  to  special 
miracle,  is  observed  by  the  man  of  enlarged  education  to  be  one 
of  a  class,  and  connected  with  others  happening  in  other  parts 
of  the  world  ;  but  in  the  very  circumstances  which  have  led  the 
latter  to  make  this  observation,  he  has  enlarged  the  number  of 
his  connexions,  and  become  dependent  on  objects  which  cannot,  by 
any  possibility,  reach  or  touch  the  former.  The  express  which 
brings  to  the  man  of  reading  and  intelligence  the  notice  of  an 

M 


178  PURPOSES  SERVED  BY  THE 

earthquake  which  has  visited  some  distant  country,  and  by  which 
he  explains  some  partial  shock  felt  near  his  dwelling,  that  so 
roused  the  superstitious  fear  of  the  cottager,  also  informs  him  of 
the  failure  of  a  crop  in  that  particular  country,  to  the  great  de- 
triment of  his  trade,  or  announces  the  painful  intelligence  of  the 
decease  of  a  beloved  son  for  whose  welfare  he  has  been  toiling. 

There  are  proud  enthusiasts  who  conclude  that,  by  advancing 
in  knowledge  and  the  useful  arts,  man  will  soon  be  able  to 
command  nature,  and  become  independent  of  it.  It  is  singular 
to  observe  how  every  mind  paints  a  golden  age  for  the  future 
destinies  of  our  world,  and  each  mind  colours  that  age  with  its 
own  hues.  The  golden  age  of  the  philosopher  is  an  anticipated 
period  in  which  man  shall  be  able  to  control  all,  and  yet  be 
controlled  of  none.  But  the  philosopher  forgets  one  most  im- 
portant element  in  his  calculation — and  that  is,  that  in  very 
proportion  as  society  becomes  more  artificial,  it  becomes  more 
reticulated,  and  the  destinies  of  every  one  portion  more  con- 
nected with  those  of  every  other,  and  that  the  snapping  of  one 
link  in  this  network  may  throw  the  whole  into  inextricable  con- 
fusion. In  short,  both  the  regular  and  the  contingent  pervade 
nature,  and  we  cannot  free  ourselves  from  the  one  or  the  other ; 
and  man,  whether  in  his  lesser  or  wider  spheres,  whether  in  the 
ruder  or  more  civilized  states  of  society,  is  made  to  fall  in  with 
very  much  the  same  proportion  of  both. 

As  entertaining  this  view  of  the  perfection  of  the  original 
constitution  of  all  things,  we  see  no  advantage  in  calling  in 
special  interpositions  of  God  acting  without  physical  causes — 
always  excepting  the  miracles  employed  to  attest  Divine  revela- 
tion. Speaking  of  the  ordinary  providence  of  God,  we  believe 
that  the  fitting  of  the  various  parts  of  the  machinery  is  so  nice 
that  there  is  no  need  of  any  interference  with  it.  We  believe 
in  an  original  disposition  of  all  things  ;  we  believe  that  in  this 
disposition  there  is  provided  an  interposition  of  one  thing  in 
reference  to  another,  so  as  to  produce  the  individual  effects 
which  God  contemplates  ;  but  we  are  not  required  by  philosophy 
nor  religion  to  acknowledge, that  there  is  subsequent  interposition 
by  God  with  the  original  dispositions  and  interpositions  which 
he  hath  instituted.  "  This  is,  in  fact,  the  great  miracle  of  provi- 
dence, that  no  miracles  are  needed  to  accomplish  its  purposes."* 
*  Taylor's  Nat.  Hist,  of  Enthusiasm. 


COMPLICATION  AND  FORTUITIES  OF  NATURE.  179 

"  God,"  says  Leibnitz,  "  has  provided  everything,  he  has  re- 
medied everything,  beforehand.  There  is  in  his  works  a  har- 
mony, a  beauty,  already  pre-established.  This  opinion  does  not 
at  all  exclude  the  providence  or  the  government  of  God.  A 
true  providence  on  the  part  of  God  demands  a  perfect  fore- 
knowledge ;  but  it  demands  not  only  that  he  has  foreseen  every- 
thing, but  also  that  he  has  provided  for  everything — otherwise 
he  is  deficient  either  of  the  wisdom  to  foresee  or  the  power  to 
provide."  Samuel  Clarke,  in  a  controversy  which  lie  carried  on 
with  Leibnitz,  urges  that  this  view  does  not  render  the  universe 
dependent  on  God,  and  so  he  argues  that  God  interposes  from 
time  to  time  to  set  his  works  right.  To  this  Leibnitz  replies : — 
"  That  defect  of  our  machines  which  renders  them  in  need  of 
repair,  arises  from  the  circumstance  that  they  are  not  sufficiently 
dependent  on  the  workman.  Thus  the  dependence  of  nature 
upon  God,  so  far  from  being  the  cause  of  this  defect,  is  rather  the 
cause  why  the  defect  does  not  exist,  because  it  is  dependent  on  a 
workman  too  perfect  to  make  a  work  which  needs  to  be  repaired."* 

We  see  no  advantage  to  be  gained  to  religion  by  insisting 
that  the  ordinary  events  in  the  common  providence  of  God  cau 
have  no  second  cause.  Bacon,  speaking  on  this  subject,  says, — 
"  For  certain  it  is  that  God  worketh  nothing  in  nature  but  by 
second  causes ;  and  if  they  would  have  it  otherwise  believed,  it 
is  mere  imposture,  as  it  were,  in  favour  towards  God,  and  nothing 
else  but  to  offer  to  the  Author  of  truth  the  unclean  sacrifice  of 
a  lie.  But  farther,  it  is  an  assured  truth,  and  a  conclusion  of 
experience,  that  a  little  or  superficial  knowledge  of  philosophy 
may  incline  the  man  to  atheism,  but  a  farther  proceeding  therein 
doth  bring  the  mind  back  again  to  religion  ;  for  in  the  entrance 
of  philosophy,  when  the  second  causes  which  are  next  unto  the 
senses  do  offer  themselves  to  the  mind  of  man,  if  it  dwell  and 
stay  there,  it  may  induce  some  oblivion  of  the  highest  cause ; 
but  when  a  man  passeth  on  farther,  and  seeth  the  dependence 
of  causes  and  the  works  of  Providence,  then,  according  to  the 
allegory  of  the  poets,  he  will  easily  believe  that  the  highest  link 
of  nature's  chain  must  needs  be  tied  to  the  foot  of  Jupiter's  chair."f 

There  are  some  judicious  remarks  on  this  subject  in  Tucker's 
Light  of  Nature.^     "  Therefore,  let  not  men  condemn  one  an- 

*  See  Le*  :*rs  between  Leibnitz  and  Clarke.  }  De  Aug.  Scien. 

J  Chap,  oq  Providence. 


180         PURPOSES  SERVED  BY  THE  FORTUITIES  OE  NATURE. 

other  too  hastily  of  impiety  or  superstition,  for  both  are  lelative 
to  the  strength  of  each  person's  sight.  The  philosopher  may 
entertain  so  high  an  opinion  of  infinite  wisdom,  as  that  upon 
the  formation  of  a  world  it  might  provide  for  every  event  that 
is  to  happen  during  the  whole  period  of  its  continuance ;  there- 
fore he  is  not  impious  in  asserting  that  all  things  since  have 
gone  on  in  the  course  of  natural  causes,  for  his  idea  of  the  first 
plan  is  so  full  as  to  leave  no  room  for  anything  to  be  interposed. 
This  the  plain  man  cannot  comprehend,  the  lines  of  his  view 
being  short ;  therefore  he  is  not  superstitious  in  imagining  fre- 
quent interpositions,  because  without  them  he  cannot  understand 
a  Providence  at  all.  He  may  likewise  find  it  impossible  to 
conceive  that  every  motion  of  matter  and  turn  of  volition  should 
be  calculated  or  foreseen :  but  supposes  a  watchful  Providence 
continually  attentive  to  the  tendency  of  second  causes,  interpos- 
ing every  hour  and  day  to  correct  the  errors  of  chance,  and 
secretly  turning  the  springs  of  action  the  way  that  wisdom  and 
goodness  recommend.  And  he  is  excusable  therein,  if  this  be 
the  best  conception  he  can  form  ;  for  it  derogates  not  from  his 
idea  of  the  Divine  wisdom  and  dominion  to  imagine  that  there 
should  be  room  left  in  nature  for  chance,  so  long  as  there  is  a 
superintending  power  who  can  foresee  the  irregularities  .of 
chance,  time  enough  to  prevent  them.  Thus,  how  largely  so- 
ever we  may  ascribe  to  interposition,  or  how  much  soever  deduct 
therefrom  to  add  to  the  disposing  Providence,  we  cannot  deny 
that  every  natural  cause  we  see  is  an  effect  of  some  prior  cause, 
impulse  of  impulse,  and  volition  of  motives  and  ideas  suggested 
to  the  mind,  therefore  must  refer  all  dispensations  ultimately  to 
the  act  of  God ;  and  as  we  cannot  imagine  him  to  act  without 
knowing  what  he  does,  and  what  will  result  therefrom,  we  must 
conclude  that  act  to  proceed  upon  a  plan  and  disposition  of  the 
causes,  tending  to  produce  the  particular  consequences  following 
thereupon.  The  only  difference  between  the  man  of  common 
sense  and  the  studious,  is  concerning  the  time  when  the  dis- 
position was  made,  which  the  one  thinks  a  few  days  or  a  few 
minutes,  the  other  many  ages  ago  ;  the  one  frequent  and  occa- 
sional, the  other  rare  and  universal :  but  both  acknowledge  that 
nothing  ever  happens  without  the  permission  of  one  almighty 
and  ever-vigilant  Governor." 


ON  A  GENERAL  AND  PARTICULAR  PROVIDENCE.      181 
8ECT.  III. ON  A  GENERAL  AND  PARTICULAR  PROVIDENCE. 

There  have  been  disputes  among  thinking  minds  in  all  ages 
as  to  whether  the  providence  of  God  is  general  or  particular. 
Philosophers,  so  called,  have  generally  taken  the  former  view, 
and  divines  the  latter.  There  has  been  a  wide  difference  be- 
tween the  views  of  these  two  parties,  but  there  is  no  necessary 
antagonism  between  the  doctrines  themselves.  The  general 
providence  of  God,  properly  understood,  reaches  to  the  most 
particular  and  minute  objects  and  events;  and  the  particular 
providence  of  God  becomes  general  by  its  embracing  every 
particular. 

Those  who  suppose  that  there  is  a  general,  but  that  there 
cannot  be  a  particular  providence,  are  limiting  God  by  ideas 
derived  from  human  weakness.  The  greatest  of  human  minds, 
in  contemplating  important  ends,  are  obliged  to  overlook  many 
minor  events  falling  out  incidentally  as  they  execute  their  plans. 
The  legislator,  for  example,  is  sometimes  under  the  necessity  of 
disregarding  the  temporary  misery  which  the  changes,  introduced 
by  him,  and  which  are  advantageous  as  a  whole,  may  bring 
along  with  them.  In  short,  in  attending  to  the  general,  man 
must  often  overlook  the  particular.  But  we  are  not  to  suppose 
that  an  infinite  God,  infinite  in  his  power,  his  wisdom,  his  re- 
sources, and  present  through  all  his  works,  is  laid  under  any 
such  inability  to  attend  to  particular  events,  because  he  is  also 
superintending  empires  and  worlds.  The  pains,  if  we  may  so 
speak,  which  God  has  taken  to  beautify  every  leaf  and  flower — 
nay,  every  weed  that  we  trample  under  foot — the  new  beauties, 
unseen  by  the  naked  eye,  which  the  microscope  discloses  in  the 
vegetable  kingdoms,  and  the  beautiful  organization  of  the  insect 
world — all  show  that  the  greatness  of  God  is  peculiarly  seen  in 
the  care  which  he  takes  of  objects  the  most  minute. 

On  the  other  hand,  they  take  a  most  unworthy  view  of  the 
Divine  character  who  conclude  that  his  attention  is  directed 
exclusively  to  a  few  favourite  objects,  in  which  they  themselves 
possibly  feel  a  special  interest.  Here,  again,  we  discover  the 
tendency  of  mankind  to  measure  Deity  by  standards  derived 
from  human  infirmity.  It  not  unfrequently  happens  that  the 
minute  man,  who  manages  with  care  and  kindness  his  own 
affairs  and  those  of  his  famity,  has  no  very  enlarged  views  or 


182  ON  A  GENERAL  AND 

feelings  of  general  philanthropy.  Taking  such  a  model  as  this, 
there  are  piously  disposed  minds  who  would  make  God  "  alto- 
gether such  an  one  as  themselves  ;"  and  conceiving  it  to  be 
impossible  for  him,  in  the  attention  which  he  must  pay  to  cer- 
tain objects,  to  provide  for  the  wants  of  all  his  creatures,  they 
would  praise  him,  because,  in  the  exercise  of  what  would  truly 
be  a  weak  favouritism,  he  is  supposed  to  pass  by  and  disregard 
the  whole  world  in  the  extraordinary  care  which  he  takes  of 
persons  who  are  the  special  objects  of  his  regards. 

In  the  government  of  this  world,  the  individual  is  not  lost  in 
the  general  on  the  one  hand,  nor  is  the  general  neglected  in  the 
attention  to  the  individual  on  the  other  hand.  No  creature,  no 
object,  however  insignificant,  has  been  overlooked.  The  general 
includes  every  individual,  which  finds  accordingly  its  appropriate 
place.  Provision  has  been  made  for  all  and  for  each  in  the  grand 
system  of  the  universe. 

The  particular  method  which  God  employs  in  accomplishing 
these  ends,  apparently  inconsistent,  has  already  been  pointed 
out.  It  is  jiot  so  much  by  means  of  those  laws  on  which  the 
minds  of  the  votaries  of  science  are  prone  to  dwell,  as  by  their 
all-wise  and  skilful  combination  for  the  production  of  the  par- 
ticular ends  which  God  designs.  Philosophers  have  looked  too 
exclusively  to  these  general  laws ;  and  in  doing  so,  have  been 
able  to  detect  few  traces  of  a  special  providence.  On-the  other 
hand,  the  person  whose  heart  prompts  him  to  observe  the  ways 
of  his  Creator,  has  ever  fondly  dwelt  on  those  cross  arrangements, 
many  of  them  apparently  accidental,  by  which  God  makes  pro- 
vision for  the  wants  of  his  creatures,  and  nicely  adapts  his 
dispensations  to  their  state  and  character. 

"  Think  we,  like  some  weak  prince,  the  Eternal  Cause 
Prone  for  his  favourites  to  reverse  his  laws  ? 
Shall  burning  Etna,  if  a  sage  requires, 
Forget  to  thunder,  and  recall  her  fires ; 
On  air  or  sea  new  motions  he  imprest, 
Oh,  blameless  Bethel,  to  relieve  thy  breast ; 
When  the  loose  mountain  trembles  from  on  high, 
Shall  gravitation  cease  if  you  go  by  ?" — Essay  on   Ifan. 

Pope  has  in  these  few  lines  stated,  in  his  usual  compact  and 
sententious  manner,  what  is  commonly  called  the  philosophic 
view  of  providence.  It  is  a  system  far  enough  from  the  surface 
to  make  it  appear  deep,  but  does  not  go  sufficiently  far  down  to 


PARTICULAR  PROVIDENCE.  183 

reach  the  foundation.  In  some  respects,  it  affords  a  worse  basis 
on  which  to  raise  a  superstructure  than  tiie  surface  patent  to  ail 
would  have  done  ;  and  it  is  utterly  insecure,  because  it  has  not 
gone  down  to  the  rock.  It  has  just  a  sufficient  amount  of  truth 
to  be  plausible.  And  so  far  as  advanced  merely  with  the  view 
of  keeping  us  from  committing  foolish  actions,  in  the  hope  that 
God  will  interpose  to  preserve  us  from  the  natural  consequences, 
so  far  as  it  is  used  for  the  purpose  of  preventing  persons  from 
tempting  Providence,  (to  use  the  language  of  a  very  different 
school,)  it  may  be  made  as  useful  as  it  is  unquestionably  sound. 
But  if  meant,  as  it  obviously  is,  to  keep  us  from  putting  confi- 
dence in  Divine  providence,  and  feeling  our  close  and  immediate 
dependence  upon  it,  it  cannot  be  condemned  in  language  suffi- 
ciently strong :  for  it  would  rob  many  of  some  of  their  deepest 
and  most  abiding  consolations,  and  foster  in  others  a  spirit  of 
pride  and  rebellion.  Nor  is  it  difficult  to  detect  the  error  which 
lurks  beneath  a  superficial  plausibility.  We  expect  not  the 
Eternal  to  change  his  laws ;  but  it  is  because  they  have  been  so 
wisely  arranged  that  they  do  not  need  to  be  changed — arranged 
so  as  to  accomplish  all  and  each  of  his  purposes.  We  do  not 
expect  Etna  to  recall  her  fires  when  a  sage  is  near ;  or  the  air 
and  ocean  to  acquire  new  motions  to  preserve  a  saint  from  dan- 
ger ;  for  if  the  sage  has  been  contending  with  the  laws  which 
he  professes  to  observe,  or  if  the  saint  has  been  despising  what 
he  should  regard  as  the  "  ordinances  of  heaven,"  it  may  be  the 
will  of  God  that  these  very  powers  should  be  the  means  of 
destroying  him.  But  should  these  individuals  not  be  rushing 
recklessly  against  the  known  laws  of  heaven,  or  should  it  be  the 
will  of  God  to  preserve  them,  it  will  be  found  that  provision  has 
been  made  for  their  escape  ;  and  that  not  through  the  powers 
of  nature  disobeying  their  own  laws,  but  through  other  powers 
in  nature  opportunely  interposing  to  stop,  to  turn  aside,  or 
otherwise  to  modify  their  operation.  The  volcano  may  burst, 
the  tempest  may  rage,  and  the  cliff  may  fall,  an  instant  before 
or  an  instant  after  the  time  when  these  events  might  have  been 
followed  with  fatal  consequences  ;  or  some  passing  impulse  of 
feeling  may  have  hurried  the  individual  away ;  or  some  other 
agent  of  nature  may  have  hastened  to  shelter  or  defend  him, 
and  all  by  a  special  arrangement  intended  by  God  from  the 
very  beginning. 


184  ON  A  GENERAL  AND 

Living  as  we  do  under  such  a  system,  we  are  not  at  liberty  to 
draw  distinctions,  and  to  represent  God  as  taking  charge  of  and 
ordaining  some  events,  but  not  other  events  or  all  events.  No 
such  distinction  should  be  drawn ;  no  such  distinction  can  be 
drawn.  As  we  make  the  attempt,  we  find  that  no  line  can  be 
described  which  will  divide  the  two  territories  which  we  would 
separate. 

Balbus  the  Stoic,  in  Cicero  Be  Natura  Deorum,  quoting  from, 
or  referring  to,  a  line  in  Euripides,  says,  "  Magna  dii  curant, 
parva  liegligunt,"  and  adds,  "  Magnis  autem  viris  prospere 
eveniunt  semper  omnes  res."  But  every  one  sees  that  the  dif- 
ference between  great  and  small  is  but  a  difference  of  degree  of 
comparison  ;  and  no  one  can  point  out  the  place  where  the  one 
ends  and  the  other  begins,  or  arrange  actual  events  under  so 
loose  a  classification.  Every  one  knows,  too,  that  great  events 
often  depend  on  events  which  are  in  themselves  insignificant ; 
and  if  small  events  were  above  or  beneath  God's  control,  great 
events  would  soon  get  beyond  his  dominion. 

In  modern  times,  many  attempts  have  been  made  to  draw  the 
line  of  distinction,  but  always  in  the  very  loosest  manner.  Is  it 
said  we  may  discover  God  in  those  events  which  have  a  cause, 
but  not  in  those  which  have  no  cause  ?  The  answer  is  at  hand, 
in  the  fact  now  acknowledged,  that  every  event  has  a  cause. 
Or  is  it  rather  hinted  that  the  distinction  lies  in  this,  that  the 
cause  of  the  one  event  is  known,  and  of  the  other  unknown  ? 
This  view  lands  us  in  the  absurdity  of  making  man's  knowledge, 
which  varies  in  the  case  of  individuals  and  ages  in  the  world's 
history,  the  measure  or  test  of  the  presence  of  Deity.  Some, 
again,  would  exclude  God  wherever  a  general  law  or  a  second 
cause  can  be  detected — forgetting  that  these  laws  or  causes  are 
ordained  by  God,  and  the  special  expression  of  his  will.  Others 
would  confine  his  intentions  to  the  immediate  results  of  general 
laws,  and  exclude  him  from  those  apparent  fortuities  which 
result  from  the  concurrence  or  collision  of  the  general  properties 
of  matter  ;  but  in  doing  so,  they  forget  that  individual  incidents, 
as  well  as  general  phenomena,  proceed  from  the  powers  of  nature 
which  God  hath  put  in  operation,  and  from  the  adjustments 
which  he  hath  instituted.  We  cannot  legitimately  draw  such  a 
distinction  as  would  admit  the  presence  of  God  in  certain  effects 
which  flow  more  directly  from  general  laws,  and  exclude  him 


PARTICULAR  PROVIDENCE.  185 

from  other  events  that  follow  as  certainly,  though  it  may  be  in 
a  more  indirect  and  devious  manner,  from  the  very  same  laws. 
We  cannot  say  of  any  one  event,  this  is  the  mere  scaffolding, 
and  of  this  other,  it  is  the  building — for  the  very  scaffolding  is 
part  of  the  building.  The  mean  is  an  end  in  God's  works  ;  and 
the  end  is  a  mean  to  something  farther.  In  short,  we  cannot 
draw  distinctions  which  do  not  exist  in  nature.  Every  trial  that 
is  made  will  shew  that  the  attempt  is  vain.  The  inevitable  prac- 
tical result  of  drawing  such  a  distinction  is  manifest.  Mankind 
would  ascribe  to  God  only  what  they  pleased,  and  this  would 
turn  out  to  be  what  suited  their  humour ;  and  they  would 
ascribe  to  fortune,  to  fate,  or  to  law,  everything  else  in  which 
they  did  not  wish  to  discover  the  presence  of  God.  Under  such 
a  system  faith  would  be  the  servant,  and  not,  as  it  ought,  the 
master  of  human  feeling.  If  we  see  God  in  any  one  part  of  his 
works,  we  must,  for  a  like  reason,  see  him  in  every  other  part. 
If  we  exclude  him  from  any  one  part,  we  must,  for  a  like  reason, 
exclude  him  from  all. 

The  conclusion  is  forced  upon  us,  that  we  are  to  see  God  in  all 
events,  even  in  those  that  may  seem  most  trifling  and  minute. 
The  saying  commends  itself  to  enlightened  reason,  as  well  as  to 
faith  and  feeling,  "A  sparrow  cannot  fall  to  the  ground  without 
him."     "  The  very  hairs  of  our  head  are  all  numbered." 

The  half-learned  man  is  apt  to  laugh  at  the  simple  faith  of  the 
clown  or  savage,  who  tells  us  that  rain  comes  from  God.  The 
former,  it  seems,  has  discovered  that  it  is  the  product  of  certain 
laws  of  air,  water,  and  electricity.  But  truly  the  peasant  is  the 
more  enlightened  of  the  two,  for  he  has  discovered  the  main 
cause,  and  the  real  actor ;  while  the  other  has  found  only  the 
second  cause,  and  the  mere  instrument.  It  is  as  if  a  friend  were 
to  send  us  a  gift  of  ingenious  and  beautiful  workmanship,  and 
just  as  our  gratitude  was  beginning  to  rise  to  the  donor,  some 
bystander  were  to  endeavour  to  damp  it  all,  by  telling  us  that 
the  gift  is  the  product  of  certain  machinery  which  he  had  seen. 
"  I  call,"  says  Sir  Thomas  Browne,  "  the  effects  of  nature  the 
works  of  God,  whose  hand  and  instrument  she  only  is ;  and 
therefore  to  ascribe  his  actions  unto  her  is  to  devolve  the  honour 
of  the  principal  agent  upon  the  instrument,  which  if  with  reason 
we  may  do,  then  let  our  hammers  rise  up  and  boast  that  they 
have  built  our  houses,  and  our  pen  receive  the  honour  of  our 


186  ON  A  GENERAL  AND  PARTICULAR  PROVIDENCE. 

writings."*  It  is  surely  possible  for  us  so  to  expand  our  minds 
as  to  discover  both  the  agent  and  the  instrument — to  discover 
the  goodness  of  God  in  the  blessing  sent,  and  the  wisdom  of  God 
in  the  means,  so  adapted  to  our  state,  through  which  the  blessing 
comes. 

It  is  instructive  to  observe  how  the  views  of  the  peasant  and 
philosopher  meet  and  harmonize  at  this  point.  The  savage,  when 
guided  by  faith,  sees  God  in  every  circumstance.  Overlooking 
all  instrumental  causes,  he  ascribes  every  event  to  the  god  whom 
he  worships.  The  half-educated  man  is  taught  to  observe,  that 
certain  events  have  second  causes ;  and  in  regard  to  these,  he  is 
tempted  to  feel  that  it  is  not  needful  to  call  in  the  Divine  power 
to  account  for  them.  As  such  science  increases,  one  portion  of 
God's  works  after  another  is  taken  from  under  his  dominion  ;  and 
simple  faith  is  being  superseded  by  a  widening  scepticism.  But 
as  science  makes  further  progress,  it  discovers  that  all  the  affaire 
of  the  world  proceed  from  causes  that  are  fixed,  and  so  concate- 
nated, that  if  we  exclude  God  from  anv  of  his  works,  we  must, 
on  the  same  ground,  exclude  him  from  them  all ;  and  that  if  we 
admit  him  in  any  case,  we  are  necessitated  to  admit  him  in  every 
case.  The  enlightened  philosopher,  who  has  penetrated  farthest 
into  the  mysteries  of  nature,  arrives  at  last  at  the  conclusion  with 
which  the  believing  savage  and  peasant  set  out,  that  God  is  to  be 
seen  in  the  rain,  in  the  sunshine,  and  in  every  occurrence. 

The  course  through  which  society  passes  is  that  through  which 
many  a  youth  has  to  run  before  he  reaches  a  settled  belief. 
Trained  in  a  pious  household,  he  was  led  to  see  the  hand  of  God 
in  every  object  which  presented  itself  to  his  eye  ;  till,  on  being 
initiated  in  a  secular  and  ill-understood  science,  he  feels  as  if  he 
might  separate  and  remove  certain  portions  of  nature  from  the 
direct  power  of  God.  The  true  cure  for  the  evils  which  proceed 
from  a  half  learning  is  to  be  found  in  a  thorough  learning. 
When  this  youth  has  reached  a  greater  height,  the  error  pro- 
ceeding from  imperfect  glimpses  will  disappear.  The  views 
which  he  caught  in  climbing  the  hill  of  science  were  more  partial 
and  confused  than  those  which  he  obtained  while  standing  on  the 
plain  below ;  and  it  is  not  till  he  reaches  the  summit,  and  the 
whole  scene  stretches  out  beneath  him,  that  they  become  clear 
aLd  comprehensive. 

*  Religio  Medici,  Sect.  16. 


ILLUSTKATIVE  NOTE.  187 

Human  science  contemplated  under  this  aspect  is  a  circle ;  as 
we  go  round  it,  we  obtain  many  pleasant  and  instructive  views ; 
but  we  arrive  at  last  at  the  point  at  which  we  set  out,  or  should 
have  set  out — at  simple  faith  in  an  all-acting  God. 

Illustrative  Note  (e.)— COMBE'S  CONSTITUTION  OF  MAN. 

This  work  has  had  so  extensive  a  circulation  in  this  country  and  in  America, 
that  it  demands  a  passing  notice.  It  is  a  congelation,  and  all  by  natural  law,  of 
a  cold  and  secular  age,  which  it  has  by  reaction  rendered  still  more  frigid.  In 
examining  it,  we  shall  not  enter  upon  the  consideration  of  the  phrenology  which 
the  author  has  used  to  explain  his  theory,  for,  as  he  remarks  himself,  the  practical 
value  of  the  views  which  he  unfolds  does  not  depend  on  phrenology  ;  and  he  inti- 
mates that  the  same  views  could  be  expounded,  though  not  so  effectually,  upon 
another  system. 

AVe  are  quite  willing  to  admit  that  there  are  some  important  truths  set  forth  in 
this  treatise.  This  world  is  governed  by  what  he  calls  natural,  organic,  and  moral 
laws.  The  classification  is  perhaps  not  very  philosophically  worded — for  surely 
organic  laws  are  also  natural  laws ;  and  when  we  speak  of  moral  laws,  we  should 
remember  that  they  are  totally  different  from  physical  laws.  But  disregarding 
this,  we  do  reckon  it  as  of  some  importance,  that  mankind  should  be  reminded  that 
this  world  is  governed  by  laws,  and  that  it  is  their  duty  to  study  these  laws,  and 
accommodate  themselves  to  them.  His  book,  we  doubt  not,  is  so  far  fitted  to 
make  men  observant  and  prudent,  and  may  have  checked,  in  some  cases,  that 
rashness  among  the  young,  and  over-exertion  among  the  eager  and  ambitious, 
which  have  produced  such  fatal  effects.  In  short,  he  has  given  a  prominence  to 
certain  points  which  common  sense  and  common  prudence  were  ever  observing, 
and  not  uufrequently  magnifying  far  beyond  their  real  importance,  but  which  re- 
ligion and  enthusiasm  were  sometimes  tempted  to  overlook  in  an  eagerness  to  attain 
their  glorious  ends.  He  has  also  pointed  out  several  important  and  deeply  inter- 
esting relations  between  the  constitution  of  the  world  and  the  constitution  of  man. 

We  feel  now,  however,  as  if  we  had  exhausted  all  the  praise  which  can  be  be- 
stowed upon  this  treatise,  the  actual  truth  set  forth  in  which  has  been  used  as  a 
means  of  conveying  not  a  little  error,  as  food  is  commonly  employed  in  the  admin- 
istering of  poison.  He  carries  out  his  very  limited  and  partial  views  as  if  they 
were  the  whole  truth,  and  has  committed  several  inexcusable  errors,  and  drawn 
conclusions  which  would  go  far  to  sap  the  foundations  of  a  living  religion.  Let 
us  notice  some  of  the  more  glaring  defects  of  the  work. 

First,  all  but  phrenologists  will  doubt  whether  he  has  given  a  correct  enumera- 
tion of  those  laws  which  mankind  are  required  to  observe ;  and  even  the  higher 
class  of  phrenologists  will  reckon  the  laws  which  he  so  magnifies  as  truly  not  the 
most  important,  and  as  not  having  had  their  proper  relative  importance  attached 
to  them. 

Secondly,  he  has  completely  overlooked  the  ambiguity  which  lurks  in  the  word 
"  law,"  and  used  it  in  all  the  diverse  senses  of  which  it  is  capable,  passing  uncon- 
sciously from  the  one  to  the  other,  and  predicating  of  a  law  in  one  sense  what  is 
true  of  it  only  in  another.  Sometimes  he  means  by  it  a  property  of  matter,  some- 
times a  cause  requiring  the  adjustment  of  two  or  more  substances  to  each  other; 
at  other  times  a  general  fact  originating  in  the  adjustment  of  causes,  and  anon  a 
moral  precept  enjoined  by  God.     With  the  greatest  coolness  and  self-complacency, 


188  ILLUSTKATIVE  NOTE. 

he  uses  the  word  "  law  '  in  all  these  senses,  without  ever  dreaming  that  there 
is  any  difference  between  them ;  constantly  asserting  of  a  general  fact  what  is 
true  only  of  a  property  of  matter,  and  of  a  physical  cause  what  holds  good  only 
of  a  moral  precept. 

Thirdly — and  this  is  his  most  inexcusable  oversight — he  overlooks  altogether 
that  adjustment  of  natural  laws  to  each  other,  whereby  the  results  are  often  of  the 
most  complicated  character,  and  such  that  they  cannot  be  anticipated  by  human 
foresight.  While  all  events  are  occurring  according  to  the  law  of  cause  and  effect, 
they  are  not  happening  in  that  orderly  and  regular  manner  which  we  call  a  gene- 
ral law.  On  the  contrary,  many  events  are  falling  out  in  an  accidental  unforeseen 
manner,  which  is  fitted  to  make  man  feel  his  helplessness.  The  author,  in  disre- 
garding this  circumstance,  this  complication  of  the  arrangements  of  Providence, 
and  the  consequent  dependence  of  man,  has  overlooked  a  principle  in  the  Divine 
government  as  important  as  that  method  of  general  laws  on  which  his  attention 
has  been  exclusively  fixed. 

Fourthly,  and  as  following  from  the  oversight  last  mentioned,  he  has  neglected 
to  observe  that  mankind  are  as  dependent  on  the  arrangements  of  Providence  as 
they  are  on  natural  and  organic  laws.  Hence  the  efficacy  of  prayer  to  bring  an 
answer  is  boldly  denied,  and  no  encouragement  given  to  faith,  to  a  sense  of  de- 
pendence, and  to  other  graces,  such  as  faith,  submission,  meekness,  and  patience, 
so  strongly  recommended  by  religion  under  all  its  beneficent  forms,  and  so  becom- 
ing on  the  part  of  man  in  the  state  in  which  he  is  at  present  placed. 

Fifthly,  he  robs  the  sufferer  of  everything  fitted  to  impart  true  consolation.  A 
poor  widow  has  her  house  burned,  or  has  lost  her  husband  in  consequence  of  the 
shipwreck  of  his  vessel ;  and  all  the  comfort  that  this  philosopher  has  to  offer  is, 
that  it  is  a  good  thing  that  fire  burns  and  that  winds  blow.  He  comes  to  her  and 
says,  "  Would  you  have  fire  not  to  burn  ?  then  remember,  if  it  does  not  burn  it 
cannot  warm  you."  "  Would  you  have  winds  not  to  blow  ?  then  bear  in  mind  that 
the  air  will  become  so  stagnant  that  you  cannftt  breathe  it."  Whatever  the 
prudent  and  worldly  may  say  to  such  a  system,  when  his  plans  are  all  prospering, 
and  he  is  hymning  an  anthem  of  praise  to  his  own  wisdom,  the  sufferer  feels  that 
he  needs  to  be  told  of  an  overruling  Providence  which  has  appointed  that  parti- 
cular event  for  good,  and  of  a  living  God  who  feels  for  the  sorrows  to  which  his 
creatures  are  exposed. 

Sixthly,  he  anticipates  for  individuals  and  communities  an  unreasonable  extent 
of  benefit  to  be  secured  by  the  mere  observation  of  general  laws.  It  is  amusing 
to  notice  the  wrath  (all  cool  though  he  usually  be)  into  which  he  works  himself 
when  blaming  mankind  for  not  observing  these  laws,  and  the  constant  predictions 
which  he  is  uttering  about  their  producing  an  Elysian  perfection,  when  they  shall 
have  become  so  wise  as  to  allow  phrenology  to  instruct  them.  Surely  there  must 
be  something  wrong  in  human  nature  when  it  has  so  neglected  these  laws  for  six 
thousand  years,  is  the  reflection  which  rises  up  in  our  minds  on  reading  his  lan- 
guage; and  is  there  not  a  risk,  we  are  inclined  to  whisper  in  his  ear,  that  this  evil 
nature  may  abide  with  us  in  time  to  come,  and  disappoint  some  of  his  brightest 
expectations  ?  Is  there  not  a  risk,  too,  that  if  men  by  natural  laws  could  do  all 
which  Combe  supposes,  they  might  be  tempted  to  abuse  their  power  ?  The  wise 
will  rejoice  that  there  is  such  a  system  of  checks  in  the  providence  of  God  that 
man  is  often  rendered  helpless,  and  is  at  all  times  dependent ;  for  they  see  that 
such  is  the  selfishness  of  the  race,  and  such  the  power  of  their  lower  propensities, 
that  if  they  could  do  more  by  natural  laws,  the  evils  which  abound  in  society 
would  be  fearfully  increased.    We,  too,  look  for  the  dawn  of  a  brighter  era  in  our 


METHOD  OF  INTERPRETING  PROVIDENCE.  180 

earth's  history ;  but  we  look  for  it  to  the  providence  of  God,  and  the  transforming 
power  of  his  Spirit. 

These  objections  to  his  views  of  natural  and  organic  laws  are  altogether  inde- 
pendent of  those  which  might  be  brought  against  his  theory  of  "moral  law,"  the 
examination  of  which  would  cause  us  to  anticipate  the  ethical  inquiries  to  be  after- 
wards instituted.  It  is  the  less  needful  to  examine  his  moral  theory,  from  the  cir- 
cumstance that  there  is  nothing  in  it  different  from  other  meagre  ethical  systems, 
except  it  be,  that  he  so  often  classes  "moral"  with  "natural"  law,  and  confounds 
things  which  the  mere  tyro  in  science  has  been  taught  to  separate. 

We  have  so  far  noticed  this  treatise,  because  there  is  an  air  of  extraordinary 
wisdom  about  it,  which  has  made  many  to  regard  it  as  superlatively  profound. 
The  author  has  seen  and  endeavoured  to  count  the  nice  wheels  of  the  machine, 
but  has  overlooked  their  relation  to  one  another,  and  the  moving  power  by  which 
they  have  been  set  in  motion.  His  views  are  about  as  profound  as  those  of  a 
factory-girl,  explaining,  with  looks  of  mysterious  wisdom,  to  her  companion  who 
has  just  entered  the  work,  the  movements  of  some  of  the  straps  or  wheels,  telling 
her  how  to  use  them,  and  pointing  out  the  danger  of  not  attending  to  them.  The 
information  is  all  very  good  and  useful,  provided  always  that  it  be  not  hinted,  that 
in  knowing  the  motion  of  these  few  wheels,  we  know  all  about  the  machine,  its 
end,  and  its  mode  of  operation. 


SECT.  IV. — METHOD  OF  INTERPRETING  THE  DIVINE  PROVIDENCE. 

Providence  is  no  doubt  a  lesson-book,  spread  out  before  us 
that  we  may  read  it.  Yet  it  is  a  difficult  and  mysterious  book 
There  are  persons  who  talk  of  the  certainty  of  nature,  in  con 
tradistinction  to  what  they  are  pleased  to  call  the  obscurity  ot 
the  Scriptures.  And,  no  doubt,  the  volume  of  inspiration  has 
its  mysteries  ;  for,  as  Kobert  Hall  remarks,  "  a  religion  without 
its  mystery  would  be  a  temple  without  its  God ;"  but,  most  as- 
suredly, the  volume  of  Providence  is  as  much  more  difficult  of 
interpretation  than  the  volume  of  the  Word,  as  hieroglyphical 
writing  is  than  alphabetical. 

How  is  the  providence  of  God  to  be  interpreted  ?  This 
general  question  resolves  itself  into  three  particular  ones,  which 
are  often  confounded,  but  which  ought  to  be  carefully  separated  : 
— To  what  extent  is  God  to  be  seen  in  the  works  of  nature  ? 
When  may  we  discover  an  intended  connexion  between  one 
part  of  God's  works  and  another  ?  When  may  we  discover  the 
particular  design  of  a  given  dispensation  ? 

I.    To  WHAT  EXTENT    IS  GOD    TO    BE    SEEN    IN    THE   WORKS  OF 

nature  ? — To  this  question  a  clear  and  decisive  answer  can  be 
given.  He  is  to  be  seen  in  every  work  of  nature  and  event  of 
providence. 


190  METHOD  OF  INTERPRETING 

Had  God  confined  himself  to  the  blind  operation  of  general 
laws,  it  might  have  been  difficult  to  determine  as  to  any  given 
event,  whether  it  was  one  of  the  objects  contemplated  as  desir- 
able to  be  produced  when  the  law  was  fixed,  or  whether  it  is 
merely  one  of  its  incidental  effects.  But  in  consequence  of  the 
infinitely  wise  adjustment  of  these  laws,  we  can  confidently  say 
of  every  event  that  happens,  that  it  was  contemplated  and  in- 
tended in  the  providence  of  God.  Almost  all  the  mistakes  into 
which  mankind  have  fallen,  in  regard  to  the  interpretation  ot 
providence,  have  arisen  from  not  carrying  out  this  principle 
thoroughly. 

There  are  persons  who  willingly  ascribe  certain  events  to  God. 
but  hand  over  others  to  chance.  Now  there  are  senses  in  which 
we  may  allowably  use  the  word  chance  ;  this  we  shall  show 
forthwith.  But  in  respect  of  production  and  purpose,  there  is, 
there  can  be,  no  such  thing  as  chance.  In  this  sense  the  word 
is  simply  expressive  of  our  ignorance.  An  accidental  event  is 
one  of  which  Ave  may  not  be  able  to  discover  the  cause  or  the 
purpose.  But  while  man  cannot  discover  the  precise  cause,  yet 
he  knows  that  there  is  a  cause,  and  while  the  design  may  be 
concealed,  yet  there  is  most  assuredly  a  purpose  contemplated  ; 
and  we  may  rest  assured  that  the  cause  has  been  appointed  to 
produce  this  particular  effect,  and  this  effect  to  serve  the  specific 
purpose.  The  wisdom  of  God  is  peculiarly  seen  in  his  consti- 
tuting a  large  class  of  events  as  contingent  in  the  view  of  man  ; 
but  instead  of  being  independent  of  God,  it  is  specially  by  these 
events  that  he  fulfils  his  own  purposes,  and  becomes  truly  the 
governor  of  his  own  world. 

Fleeing  to  an  opposite  extreme,  there  are  persons  who  there 
fall  into  precisely  the  same  error.  They  feel,  and  talk,  and 
write,  as  if  it  was  not  necessary  to  discover  the  presence  of  God 
in  those  events  which  occur  according  to  a  general  law.  By 
referring  an  event  to  such  a  law,  they  feel  as  if  they  had  placed 
it  out  of  the  special  dominion  of  God.  We  cannot  find  language 
strong  enough  to  express  our  indignation  against  those  who 
neglect  to  see  God  in  his  works,  because  they  are  done  in  a  re- 
gular manner.  Whatever  the  parties  may  profess,  their  system 
is  real  atheism.  Nor  is  our  indignation  lessened  when  wre  find 
the  errors  of  the  infidel  countenanced  by  those  who  affect  to  be 
the  defenders  of  religion.     According  to  the  doctrine  of  parties 


THE  DIVINE  PROVIDENCE.  191 

now  referred  to,  God  is  to  be  specially  seen  in  those  occurrences 
of  which  the  cause  is  unknown.  Little  attention  is  paid  by 
them  to  those  dealings  and  dispensations  of  God,  of  which  the 
physical  cause  is  obvious.  These,  it  is  thought,  may  be  ascribed 
to  nature,  or  divided  between  God  and  nature,  and  may  be 
allowed  to  pass  away  without  its  being  needful  seriously  to 
weigh  them  and  improve  them.  But  wherever  there  is  mystery, 
wherever  the  instrumental  causes  are  so  remote  or  so  compli- 
cated that  they  cannot  be  detected,  there,  it  is  supposed,  is  the 
place  at  which  God  peculiarly  works.  We  repudiate  this  dis- 
tinction as  of  a  most  perilous  character.  We  believe  that  the 
common  events  of  providence  have  a  physical  cause ;  but  we 
believe,  at  the  same  time,  that  this  circumstance  does  not  ren- 
der them  less  the  work  of  God.  In  some  cases  the  cause  is 
obvious,  and  in  others  more  recondite ;  but  in  the  one  class  as 
in  the  other  we  are  to  discover  the  operation  of  Deity.  Let  us 
adopt  an  opposite  principle,  and  we  are  landed  in  the  most  in- 
explicable confusion  ;  and  ignorance  may,  with  truth,  be  repre- 
sented as  the  mother  of  devotion,  for  our  religion  must  be  in 
proportion  to  our  ignorance.  An  ignorant  man  can  discover  no 
physical  cause  of  an  occurrence,  and  so  he  must  ascribe  it  to 
God  ;  but  another  man  has  detected  a  producing  cause  in 
nature,  and  so  needs  to  take  no  notice  of  a  higher  power.  Ac- 
cording to  this  system,  an  event  is  ascribed,  in  one  age  to  God, 
and  in  a  more  advanced  age  to  nature.  It  follows  that  ignorant 
countries  must  be  the  most  pious,  and  that  enlightened  nations 
are  necessitated  to  be  infidel  in  proportion  to  their  progress  in 
science.  Religion,  or  rather  superstition;  is  not  aware  how 
effectually  it  is  playing  into  the  hands  of  atheism  by  the  sanc- 
tion which  it  gives  to  such  a  principle — a  principle  which  would 
make  man's  religion  decrease  as  his  knowledge  of  physical 
nature  is  augmented.  Yet  it  is  this  narrow  and  superstitious 
sentiment  which  produces  all  that  jealousy  of  the  discovery  of 
law,  which  is  still  so  common  among  some  who  profess  to  be 
religious.  The  jealousies  which  they  entertain,  and  the  prin- 
ciples which  they  lay  down,  furnish  the  infidel  with  the  only 
plausible  arguments  which  he  can  use  in  his  attempt  to  banish 
God  from  his  works. 

In  dropping  the  principle  for  which  we  are  contending,  we 
fall  into  errors  of  all  sorts  and  shapes.     Thus  there  are  some 


192  METHOD  OF  INTERPRETING 

who  distinguish  between  great  events  and  great  men,  put  under 
the  special  care  of  God,  and  common  events  left  to  shift  for 
themselves  as  best  they  can.  But  it  is  a  low  and  unworthy, 
and,  to  the  mass  of  mankind,  a  most  uncomfortable  view  which 
is  given  of  our  common  Ruler,  when  he  is  spoken  of  as  caring 
merely  for  persons  and  occurrences  regarded  by  the  world  as 
great.  The  majority  of  men  cannot  be  great  men,  nor  are  they 
called  to  transact  great  events — and  are  they  to  be  compelled 
to  consider  themselves  as  overlooked  in  the  system  of  providence 
because  high  talents  or  wide  -spheres  of  usefulness  have  not  been 
allotted  to  them  ?  Truly  it  is  no  consolation  to  the  poor  man, 
under  his  privations,  to  inform  him  that  he  has  been  overlooked 
in  the  care  taken  of  individuals  and  events  regarded  as  of  more 
importance.  It  is  indeed  a  mockery  of  the  individual  exposed 
to  heavy  affliction,  to  tell  him  that  God  regulates  all  matters  of 
moment,  but  has  thought  it  unnecessary  to  make  provision  for 
his  particular  case.  The  only  view  which  will  elevate,  cheer, 
and  gladden  the  great  body  of  mankind,  in  all  their  various 
difficulties  and  trials,  is  that  which  pictures  God  as  a  father 
who  takes  charge  of  all  his  creatures  without  exception,  and 
makes  provision  for  each  according  to  his  state  and  circumstances. 

Discard  the  principle  of  God's  universal  presence  in  all  events, 
and  we  fall  under  the  guidance  of  mere  feeling  and  caprice. 
Thus  the  superstitious  man  sees  God  only  in  those  events  which 
excite  or  startle  the  mind.  He  discovers  Him  in  the  storm,  but 
not  in  the  sunshine  ;  in  the  hurricane,  but  not  in  the  calm  ;  in 
the  disease  which  prostrates  the  body,  but  not  in  the  health 
which  so  long  supported  it ;  in  short,  in  those  things,  and  in 
those  things  only,  which  call  forth  feelings  of  curiosity  and 
wonder,  astonishment  and  fear. 

The  natural  recoil  from  superstition  is  scepticism ;  and  when 
we  exclude  God  from  certain  portions  of  his  works,  the  atheist 
pursues  us,  and  shows  that  from  a  like  reason  we  should  exclude 
him  from  all  others.  When  Diagoras,  who  was  reputed  an 
atheist,  came  to  Samothrace,  some  one  pointed  out  to  him  the 
votive  tablets  erected  by  those  who  had  escaped  the  perils  of  the 
ocean,  and  thus  addressed  him : — "  Thou  who  thinkest  that  the 
gods  neglect  human  affairs,  do  you  not  observe,  from  so  many 
painted  tablets,  how  many  by  their  vows  have  testified  that  they 
have  escaped  the  power  of  the  tempest,  and  arrived  in  safety  in 


THE  DIVINE  PROVIDENCE.  193 

this  harbour  ?"  "  It  happens  thus,"  was  the  reply, — "  they 
erect  no  tablets  who  have  suffered  shipwreck  and  perished  in 
the  sea."*  All  who  would  confine  the  power  of  God  to  mere 
deliverances  from  dangers  created  by  the  laws  of  nature — that 
is,  by  the  laws  of  God — expose  themselves  to  similar  objections 
pertinent  or  impertinent ;  nor  can  scepticism  be  successfully 
resisted  except  by  putting  the  whole  of  nature  under  the  do- 
minion of  its  Governor. 

No  doubt  this  doctrine  of  a  universal  providence  may  be 
abused,  but  it  can  be  abused  only  by  departing  from  it.  There 
are  minds  that  will  fix  on  certain  events,  and  those  of  the  most 
trivial  nature,  and  build  on  them  the  most  unworthy  conceptions 
of  the  Divine  character.  But  it  is  against  these  narrow  views 
that  the  doctrine  of  a  universal  providence,  including  every  par- 
ticular, provides  the  most  effectual  remedy,  by  calling  upon  us 
to  extend  our  view  and  embrace  all  particulars.  The  doctrine 
which  we  are  now  defending  condemns  alike  those  who  see  God 
only  in  great  events,  and  those  who  see  him  only  in  those  that 
are  minute,  and  demands  that  we  discover  him  in  both,  and  give 
to  both  their  due  place  and  importance.  "  In  minds  of  a  puny 
form,"  says  Isaac  Taylor,  "  whose  enthusiasm  is  commonly 
mingled  with  some  degree  of  abject  superstition,  the  doctrine  of 
a  particular  providence  is  liable  to  be  degraded  by  habitual 
association  with  trivial  and  sordid  solicitudes."  "  The  fault  in 
those  instances  does  not  consist  in  an  error  of  opinion,  as  if  even 
the  most  trivial  events  were  not,  equally  with  the  most  consi- 
derable, under  the  Divine  management ;  but  it  is  a  perversion 
and  degradation  of  feeling,  which  allows  the  mind  to  be  occu- 
pied with  whatever  is  frivolous,  to  the  exclusion  of  whatever  is 
important."f 

The  events  of  providence  appear  to  us  very  much  like  the 
letters  thrown  into  a  post-bag,  and  this  parcel  then  sent  forth 
on  its  destination.     The  person  who  carries  it, — 

"  Messenger  of  joy 


Perhaps  to  thousands,  and  of  grief  to  some, 
To  him  indifferent  whether  grief  or  joy," — 

onward  he  moves,  quite  unconcerned  as  to  the  nature  of  the 
communications  he  bears,  or  the  effects  produced  by  them.  And 
when  we  look  into  that  repository,  it  may  seem  as  if  its  contents 

*  Cic.  De  Nat.  Deor.,  iii.  37.  f  Nat.  Hist,  of  Enthusiasm. 

N 


194  METHOD  OF  INTERPRETING 

were  in  inextricable  confusion,  and  we  wonder  how  the  letters, 
parcels,  money,  periodicals,  should  ever  reach  their  individual 
destinations.  But  then  every  letter  has  its  special  address  in- 
scribed upon  it — it  has  the  name  and  residence  of  the  party,  and 
so  it  shall  in  due  time  fall  into  his  hands,  and  bring  its  proper 
intelligence.  And  what  different  purposes  do  these  letters  fulfil 
— what  varied  emotions  do  they  excite  !  This  declares  that 
friends  are  in  health  and  prospering — this  other  is  the  bearer  ol 
the  news  of  wealth,  or  of  the  wealth  itself — this  third  tells  ot 
some  crushing  disappointment,  and  quenches  long-cherished 
hopes  by  the  tidings  of  the  utter  failure  of  deep-planned  schemes 
— while  this  fourth,  with  sable  symbols,  announces  to  the  wife 
that  she  is  a  widow,  or  to  the  parent  that  he  is  childless,  or  to 
the  child  fondly  cherished  by  the  mother  that  he  is  an  orphan. 
It  is  a  kind  of  picture  of  the  movements  of  Providence.  What 
a  crowd  of  events  huddled  together,  and  apparently  confused, 
does  it  carry  along  with  it !  Very  diverse  are  the  objects  bound 
up  in  that  bundle,  very  varied  are  the  emotions  which  they  are 
to  excite  when  opened  up ;  yet  how  coolly  and  systematically 
does  the  vehicle  proceed  on  its  way  !  Neither  the  joy  nor  the 
sorrow  which  it  produces  causes  it  to  linger  an  instant  in  its 
course.  But  meanwhile  every  occurrence,  or  bundle  of  occur- 
rences, is  let  out  at  its  proper  place.  Each  has  a  name  inscribed 
upon  it,  each  has  a  place  to  which  it  is  addressed.  Each,  too, 
has  a  message  to  carry,  and  a  purpose  to  fulfil.  Some  inspire 
hope  or  joy,  others  raise  only  fear  and  sorrow.  The  events 
which  are  unfolded  by  the  same  course  of  things,  and  which  fall 
out  the  same  day,  bring  gladness  to  one,  and  land  another  in 
deepest  distress.  On  the  occurrence  of  the  same  event  you  per- 
ceive one  weeping  and  another  rejoicing.  Some  of  the  dispen- 
sations are  observed  to  propagate  prosperity  through  a  whole 
community.  And  these  others,  so  black  and  dismal,  and  of 
which  so  many  arrive  at  the  same  time,  carry,  as  they  are  scat- 
tered, gloom  into  the  abodes  of  thousands.  But  amid  all  this 
seeming  confusion,  every  separate  event  has  its  separate  destina- 
tion. If  pestilence  has  only  some  one  person  devoted  to  it  in  a 
city  or  community,  that  person  it  will  assuredly  find  out,  and 
execute  the  judgment  of  heaven  upon  him.  If  there  be  a 
thousand  persons  allotted  to  it  in  a  district,  it  will  not  allow 
one  of  the  thousand  to  escape.    If,  among  the  numbers  who  are 


THE  DIVINE  PROVIDENCE.  195 

dying,  there  be  one  regarding  whom  it  has  no  commission  to 
seize  upon  him,  that  individual  must  remain  untouched.  "  A 
thousand  shall  fall  at  thy  side,  and  ten  thousand  at  thy  right 
hand,  but  it  shall  not  come  nigh  thee."  It  has  a  commission, 
and  will  execute  it ;  but  then  it  cannot  go  beyond  its  commis- 
sion. And  in  regard  to  every  person  to  whom  the  event  comes, 
it  has  a  special  end  to  accomplish  ;  and  it  bears  a  special  mes- 
sage, if  he  will  but  read  it  and  attend  to  it. 

II.  In  what  circumstances  may  we  discover  an  intended 

CONNEXION  BETWEEN  ONE  PART  OF  God's  WORKS  AND  ANOTHER  ? 

We  have  said,  that  in  the  sense  of  being  causeless  or  pur- 
poseless, no  event  happens  by  chance.  But  still  there  are  two 
legitimate  senses  in  which  the  word  chance  may  be  employed. 
First,  it  may  be  applied  to  an  event  of  which  the  mode  of  pro- 
duction or  the  design  is  undiscoverable  by  us.  Thus  understood, 
many  events  may  be  described  as  accidental :  and  we  have  seen 
that  great  and  beneficent  purposes  are  served  by  the  arrange- 
ment which  admits  of  such.  But  there  is  a  second  sense,  in 
which  we  may  admit  the  existence  of  chance,  and  it  is  with  this 
that  we  have  now  to  do.  While  all  events  have  a  connexion 
with  their  immediate  physical  cause,  and  also  with  God  as  their 
ultimate  author,  it  does  not  follow  that  every  event  has  an 
intended  connexion  with  every  other.*  There  cannot  be  such  a 
thing  as  casual  occurrences,  but  there  may  be,  and  often  are, 
such  things  as  casual  concurrences.  There  may  be  conjunctions 
of  events  in  respect  of  time  or  place,  which  are  purely  accidental, 
and  this  while  the  events  themselves  may  all  be  traced  to  God, 
An  eclipse  of  the  sun  and  a  devastating  famine  may  happen 
about  the  same  time ;  and  true  religion  will  teach  us  to  refer 
both  to  God,  but  it  does  not  follow  that  the  two  have  a  con- 
nexion with  each  other.  It  is  one  thing  to  declare  that  every 
event  is  connected  with  God  as  its  author,  and  quite  another  to 
affirm  that  it  is  designedly  related  to  every  other  which  may  be 
contiguous  to  it.  But  are  we  never  at  liberty  to  discover  a  cor- 
relation between  two  events  ? 

It  is  evident  that  there  are  such  designed  correspondences  of 
one  event  to  another.     The  deepest  thinkers  have  been  prone 

*  See  Mill's  Logic,  R  iii.  c.  xvii.  This  subject  -will  be  found  farther  expli- 
cated by  the  author  in  his  work  on  the  combined  order  and  adaptation  in  the 
universe. 


196  METHOD  OF  INTERPRETING 

to  dive  into  these  profundities.  "  In  ray  opinion,"  says  Davy,* 
"profound  minds  are  the  most  likely  to  think  lightly  of  the 
resources  of  human  reason,  and  it  is  the  pert  superficial  thinker 
who  is  generally  strongest  in  every  kind  of  unbelief.  The  deep 
philosopher  sees  chains  of  causes  and  effects  so  wonderfully  and 
strangely  linked  together,  that  he  is  usually  the  last  person  to 
decide  upon  the  impossibility  of  any  two  series  of  events  being 
independent  of  each  other ;  and  in  science,  so  many  natural 
miracles,  as  it  were,  have  been  brought  to  light,  such  as  the  fall 
of  stones  from  meteors  in  the  atmosphere,  the  disarming  a 
thunder-cloud  by  a  metallic  point,  the  production  of  fire  from 
ice  by  a  metal  white  as  silver,  and  the  referring  certain  laws  of 
motion  of  the  sea  to  the  moon — that  the  physical  inquirer  is 
seldom  disposed  to  assert  confidently  on  any  abstruse  subject 
belonging  to  the  order  of  natural  things,  and  still  less  so  on 
those  relating  to  the  more  mysterious  relations  of  moral  events 
and  intellectual  natures." 

But  while  there  is  abundant  room  in  the  method  of  Providence 
for  wonderful  conjunctions  and  recurrences  intended  by  God, 
we  must  on  that  very  account  be  the  more  on  our  guard  against 
that  mystical  and  speculative  spirit  which  would  multiply  them 
without  evidence.  The  intricacy  of  God's  procedure,  while  it 
admits  of  his  appointing  mysterious  connexions  between  events, 
also  furnishes  a  field  in  which  human  fancy  and  conjecture  will 
delight  to  sport.  The  human  spirit  has  often  wandered  in  the 
mazes  of  Divine  providence  without  a  pathway  to  keep  it  in  the 
right  direction,  and  invented  correspondences  and  analogies 
which  were  never  thought  of  by  the  Creator  of  the  world.  The 
arts  of  divination,  necromancy,  and  astrology,  have  betaken 
themselves  to  these  high  and  misty  regions,  whence  it  has  been 
most  difficult  to  dislodge  them. 

Are  there  no  rules  to  guide  us  in  determining  when  a  con- 
i unction  is  intended,  and  when  it  is  casual  ?  The  following 
may  at  once  guide  and  restrain. 

First,  we  may  regard  the  connexion  as  intended,  whenever  we 
can  discover  a  natural  tie,  that  is,  a  tie  in  the  system  of  causes 
and  laws  which  God  hath  appointed.  We  say  laws  as  well  as 
causes ;  for,  from  reasons  already  explained,  there  may  be 
general  laws  of  nature  observed  when  the  causes  are  utterly 

*  Salmonia. 


THE  DIVINE  rKOVIDENCE.  197 

unknown.  All  events  connected  causally,  and  all  events  con- 
nected by  an  observable  invariable  law,  may  be  held  as  joined 
by  the  appointment  of  God.  It  is  by  the  observation  of  the 
bonds  of  union,  as  we  have  seen,  that  the  mind  acquires  its 
practical  foresight  and  scientific  knowledge.  There  are  such 
correspondences  strewn  all  around  us,  that  we  may  observe  them 
and  act  upon  them. 

Secondly,  we  may,  upon  satisfactory  evidence,  believe  in  such 
conjunctions  as  intended,  when  we  discover  a  moral  tie.  We 
hold  the  moral  law  to  be  as  much,  to  say  the  least  of  it,  the 
appointment  of  God  as  any  natural  law.  As  there  are  har- 
monies pre-established  between  one  natural  law  and  another,  so 
there  may  be,  so  there  are,  harmonies  between  the  moral  law 
and  the  physical  laws.  God  has  so  ordered  his  physical  govern- 
ment, that  it  is  made  in  various  ways  to  support  his  moral 
government,  both  in  the  way  of  encouraging  that  which  is  good 
and  beneficent,  and  arresting  and  punishing  that  which  is  evil. 
Now,  whenever  we  can  discover  such  a  moral  tie,  we  may,  always 
in  the  exercise  of  common  sense  and  a  sound  judgment,  believe 
in  intended  coincidences  when  supported  by  a  sufficient  induc- 
tion of  facts. 

Thirdly,  we  may,  on  the  same  terms,  believe  in  such  corre- 
spondences when  we  can  discover  a  religious  tie.  For  just  as 
we  hold  man  to  be  a  physical  and  a  moral,  so  we  also  hold  him 
to  be  a  religious  agent.  And  as  there  are  connexions  between 
the  physical  and  the  physical,  and  between  the  physical  and  the 
moral,  so  there  may  also  be  connexions  between  the  physical  and 
the  religious.  As  the  physical  government  of  God  is  so  arranged 
as  to  uphold  the  moral  ends  of  God,  it  may  be  also  so  arranged 
as  to  provide  an  answer  to  prayer,  to  order  the  destinies  of  the 
pious  in  all  faithfulness  and  love,  and  to  help  on  the  true  religion 
in  its  progress  towards  universality.  The  heaving  of  the  waves, 
in  correspondence  with  the  motions  of  the  moon,  is  not  more 
certain  than  the  movements  of  earthly  events  in  correspondence 
with  heavenly  influences. 

He  who  faithfully  follows  out  these  principles,  shall  be  kept 
by  them,  on  the  one  hand,  from  that  spirit  of  ungodliness  which 
fails  to  detect  the  presence  and  purposes  of  God  in  the  dispensa- 
tions of  his  providence,  and  on  the  other  hand,  from  that  spirit 
of  uncharitable  partisanship,  which  would  call  down  fire  from 


198  METHOD  OF  INTERPRETING 

heaven  upon  every  supposed  offender.  If,  for  example,  some 
form  of  pestilence,  such  as  cholera,  visits  a  district,  they  will 
lead  us  first  to  see  the  hand  of  God  in  it,  and  secondly,  to  inquire 
whether  it  may  not  have  been  a  relation  to  some  particular  evil 
in  the  community  ;  and  as  we  discover  how  it  falls  most  severely 
upon  the  intemperate,  and  those  who  consort  in  the  haunts  of 
pollution,  they  will  conduct  us  to  the  conclusion,  that  it  is 
specially  directed  against  the  social  evils  among  us,  and  that  it  is 
allowed  to  travel  beyond  its  particular  walk,  and  to  attack  the 
comfortable  and  the  wealthy,  in  order  to  shew  them  that  they 
are  so  far  responsible  for  the  moral  diseases  in  the  midst  of  them, 
and  that  the  flames  must  spread  if  they  are  not  extinguished. 
Or  suppose  that  disease  has  entered  our  own  dwelling,  these  same 
principles  will  lead  us,  as  in  the  previous  case,  first  to  see  God 
in  the  occurrence,  and  then  to  inquire  what  reference  it  can  have 
to  our  moral  and  religious  state.  In  directing  us  to  such  practi- 
cal inquiries,  they  will  save  us  from  a  vast  amount  of  loose 
speculations  aud  profitless  applications,  which  go  out  in  un- 
charitable references  towards  others,  and  come  back  with  no 
lessons  of  humility  to  ourselves. 

Guided  by  these  principles,  and  guarded  by  sound  sense,  the 
inquiring  mind  will  discover  designed  combinations,  many  and 
wonderful,  between  the  various  eyents  of  Divine  providence. 
Read  in  the  spirit  of  faith,  striking  relations  will  everywhere 
manifest  themselves.  What  singular  unions  of  two  streams  at 
the  proper  place  to  help  on  the  exertions  of  the  great  and  good  I 
What  curious  intersections  of  cords  to  catch  the  wicked  as  in  a 
net,  when  they  are  prowling  as  wild  beasts !  By  strange  but 
most  apposite  correspondences,  human  strength,  when  set  against 
the  will  of  God,  is  made  to  waste  awav  under  his  indignation 
burning  against  it,  as,  in  heathen  story,  Meleager  wasted  away 
as  the  stick  burned  which  his  mother  held  in  the  fire.  A  con- 
sistency not  visible  at  first  sight  may  thus  be  traced  throughout 
the  whole  scheme  of  God's  providence.  When  the  eye  is  made 
to  run  over  years  and  ages,  it  will  discover  a  track  running  along 
the  whole  territory,  now  disappearing,  but  again  clearly  marked  ; 
a  stream  meandering  and  sometimes  hiding  itself,  and  seemingly 
lost,  yet,  like  Arethusa,  appearing  again,  and  holding  on  its  way 
to  the  place  to  which  it  has  to  bear  its  waters.  There  will  be 
seen  a  line  of  transmission  from  age  to  age,  and  events  are 


THE  DIVINE  PROVIDENCE.  199 

explained  by  other  events  separated  from  them  by  a  thousand 
removes.  Looked  at  in  a  narrow  and  prying  and  jealous  spirit, 
every  individual  part  may  seem  to  be  mere  twisted  and  inter- 
twined threads,  yet  eventually  out  of  the  whole  is  formed  a  web 
of  varied  but  beauteous  and  harmonious  texture. 

So  far  as  the  connexions  are  natural,  we  have  already  contem- 
plated them,  and  so  far  as  they  are  moral  and  religious,  they 
will  yet  come  under  our  notice.  Meanwhile,  it  may  be  needful, 
in  the  way  of  caution,  to  show  how  these  general  rules,  in  guid- 
ing us  to  combinations  which  are  real,  will  keep  us  from  trust- 
ing in  others  which  are  visionary.  Of  this  latter  description 
are  omens,  charms,  incantations,  the  spells  that  are  used  in  witch- 
craft and  necromancy,  and  the  supposed  relations  of  events  which 
give  rise  to  divination  and  astrology.  The  more  mysterious 
chemical  agents,  it  is  thought,  may  be  used  in  an  inexplicable 
way  for  inflicting  or  preventing  direfid  evils.  Dreams,  the  shape 
of  the  clouds,  the  flight  of  birds — and  especially  of  certain  birds, 
as  the  eagle  and  the  raven,  the  pecking  of  chickens,  the  state  of 
a  brute's  entrails,  the  rolling  of  thunder,  the  movements  of  the 
planets,  the  very  ravings  of  maniacs,  and  the  neighing  of  horses, 
have  all  been  regarded  as  prognostics  of  future  events.  "  The 
Egyptians  and  Babylonians,  dwelling  in  plains,  drew  foreknow- 
ledge from  the  mystic  dances  of  the  stars.  The  Etruscans, 
addicted  to  the  frequent  offering  of  sacrifices,  derived  it  from 
the  inspection  of  the  entrails  of  animals,  and  from  the  prodigies 
in  the  heavens  and  earth  which  fell  frequently  under  their  notice 
owing  to  the  nature  of  their  climate  and  country.  The  pastoral 
Arabians,  Phrygians,  and  Cilicians,  wandering  over  their  plains 
and  mountains,  sought  to  pierce  futurity  by  the  observation  of 
the  flight  and  music  of  birds."*  Our  Saxon  forefathers  "  trusted 
in  their  magical  incantations  for  the  cure  of  disease,  for  the 
success  of  their  tillage,  for  the  discovery  of  lost  property,  for 
uncharming  cattle,  and  the  prevention  of  casualties.  One  day 
was  useful  for  all  things;  another,  though  good  to  tame  animals, 
was  baleful  to  sow  seeds.  One  day  was  favourable  to  the  com- 
mencement of  business,  another  to  let  blood,  and  others  wore  a 
forbidding  aspect  to  these  and  other  things.  On  this  day  they 
were  to  buy,  on  a  second  to  sell,  on  a  third  to  hunt,  on  a  fourth 
to  do  nothing.     If  a  child  was  born  on  such  a  dav,  it  would 

*  Cic.  De  Divin.,  Lib.  i.  93,  94. 


200  METHOD  OF  INTERPRETING 

live ;  if  on  another,  its  life  would  be  sickly ;  if  on  another,  it 
would  perish  early."* 

It  may  be  observed,  first  of  all,  in  reference  to  the  supersti- 
tious trust  in  such  connexions,  that  it  is  not  the  legitimate  follow- 
ing out  of  the  doctrine  of  a  particular  providence.  According  to 
that  doctrine,  God  is  to  be  seen  in  every  event ;  but,  in  the 
superstitious  trust  referred  to,  it  is  assumed,  farther,  that  certain 
events  are  combined  in  a  mysterious  manner.  We  may  believe 
in  the  connexion  of  every  event  with  God  as  its  author  ;  while 
we  do  not  believe,  but  rather  positively  deny,  that  events  no 
way  causally,  or  morally,  or  religiously  connected,  have  yet  an 
inexplicable  association,  supposed  to  be  the  means  of  widening 
the  sphere  of  man's  knowledge,  but  in  reality  the  means  of  per- 
plexing and  confounding  him.  There  is  no  impossibility  involved 
in  the  Stoic  idea,  that,  according  to  the  constitution  of  things, 

7  O  <D     7 

certain  signs  should  precede  certain  occurrences.f  We  do  not 
deny  the  possibility  of  God  establishing  such  a  harmony  between 
things  that  have  no  visible  relation ;  but  we  deny,  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  that  He  has  instituted  such  a  correspondence.  The 
burden  of  proof  lies  on  those  who  maintain  the  positive  doctrine  ; 
and  the  evidence  furnished  is  as  visionary  as  are  the  fancies  of 
those  who  dwell  in  this  region  of  dreams.  A  few  casual  coinci- 
dences, eagerly  seized  upon  by  an  excited  temper,  are  no  proof 
of  a  connexion,  causal  or  contemplated.  Nor  do  we  find  much 
difficulty  in  explaining  the  mystic  or  superstitious  belief  referred 
to,  and  that  without  supposing  that  it  has  evidence  to  build  on. 
It  lives  in  the  regions  of  mists  and  clouds,  where  fancy  may 
weave  her  shapes  to  suit  her  humours,  and  where  excited  feeling 
will  form  every  half-seen  object  into  ghosts  and  spectres. 

We  can  readily  enter  into  some  of  the  feelings  which  lead  men 
to  betake  themselves  to  oracles  and  auguries.  Every  one  must 
at  times  have  felt  an  intense  desire  to  get  a  glimpse  of  the  objects 
behind  that  veil,  which,  hanging  immediately  before  us,  ever 
hides  futurity  from  the  view.  The  man  is  about  to  take  a  step 
which  may  exercise  a  momentous  power  over  his  future  destiny  ; 
he  is  setting  out  on  an  important  journey,  or  commencing  a  great 
undertaking  ;  he  is  a  husbandman,  and  about  to  sow  the  crops 
which  are  to  be  his  sustenance ;  or  he  is  a  king,  invited  to  enter 

*  Turner's  Anglo-Saxons,  B.  Til.  c.  13. 

f  See  Cic.  De  Divin.,  Lib.  i.  118,  where  this  view  is  expounded. 


THE  DIVINE  PROVIDENCE.  201 

into  a  truce,  or  declare  war ;  or  a  soldier,  about  to  buckle  on  his 
armour  ; — or  he  has  arrived  at  a  crisis  in  his  own  affairs,  or  in 
those  of  the  society  with  which  he  is  connected  ;  he  has  long  been 
pursuing  some  favourite  plans,  which  are  expected  speedily  to 
bring  important  results  ;  he  is  on  the  eve  of  great  events,  for  evil 
or  for  good  ;  he  is  on  a  bed  of  distress,  and  sees  death  looking  in 
at  the  curtains ; — and  the  wish  of  his  heart  is,  that  there  were  but 
some  means  of  looking  into  that  dim  futurity,  of  deciding  his 
hesitating  judgment,  and  putting  an  end  to  this  intensely  painful 
suspense.  At  such  times  the  mind  will  catch  at  every  fact  or 
fancy  that  may  seem  fitted  to  relieve  its  perplexities.  Is  there 
no  gifted  man  who  sees  farther  than  others  into  the  coming  hour 
which  is  so  portentous  ?  Are  there  no  appointed  connexions  by 
which  the  future  may  be  seen  in  the  present  or  the  past  ?  Can 
no  horoscope  be  constructed  by  which  these  mystic  movements  of 
the  planets  may  be  made  to  reveal  the  movements  of  advancing 
earthly  events  ?  Will  no  voice  issue  from  some  hallowed  grove 
or  shrine  ?  Will  no  whisper  of  these  breezes,  no  form  in  these 
mists  or  clouds,  no  vision  of  supernatural  being,  be  vouchsafed  to 
guide  us  in  these  perplexities,  or,  at  least,  to  put  an  end  to  this 
uncertainty,  more  excruciating  than  the  most  dreadful  reality  ? 
From  feelings  that  have  been  at  work  in  our  own  breast,  we  can 
in  some  measure  understand  the  intensity  of  passion  which  led 
Brutus  to  see  the  vision  before  the  battle  of  Philippi ;  which 
brought  Saul,  before  engaging  in  his  last  battle,  to  the  witch  of 
Endor,  to  call  up  his  faithful  monitor,  Samuel;  and  which  in- 
duced a  king  of  Israel,  who  had  suffered  what  seemed  to  be  a 
fatal  injury  by  a  fall,  to  send  messengers  to  the  famous  temple  at 
Ekron.  Without  at  all  supposing  that  heaven  lends  its  sanction 
to  such  frivolities,  we  can  understand  how  persons  should  be  led, 
at  times  of  excited  feeling,  whether  of  fear  or  expectation,  to  have 
recourse  to  those  dreams,  mysteries,  and  casualties,  which  furnish 
the  materials  of  all  the  omens  or  charms  which  superstition  and 
knavery  employ. 

Left  without  sufficient  evidence  to  support  them,  we  are  led, 
by  the  whole  analogy  of  the  Divine  procedure,  to  reject  them. 
There  is  far  too  much  of  high  dignity  and  solemn  majesty  in  the 
march  of  Providence  to  admit  of  its  stooping  down  to  construct 
these  coincidences  of  petty  ingenuity,  worthy  only  of  a  mystic, 
a  magician,  or  a  boy  poet.     While  such  dim  and  distant  corre- 


202  METHOD  OF  INTERPRETING 

spondences  could  confer  no  real  benefit,  they  would  ever  tempt 
the  mind  to  waste  its  strength,  mounted  on  an  unbridled  fancy, 
bearing  its  rider  whithersoever  it  would.  So  far  as  mankind  can- 
not discover  the  future  by  the  use  of  their  faculties,  in  observ- 
ing the  ordinary  proceedings  of  Providence,  it  were  vastly  better, 
for  their  peace,  their  moral  discipline,  and  improvement,  that 
the  cloud  should  continue  to  rest  upon  it.  The  wisdom  of  God 
is  seen  as  much  in  what  he  hath  concealed  as  in  what  he  hath 
revealed.     "  It  is  the  glory  of  God  to  conceal  a  thing." 

It  is,  therefore,  safest,  and  in  every  way  best,  to  keep  to  the 
rules  which  we  have  laid  down,  and  to  insist  on  a  natural,  a 
moral,  or  a  religious  law  connecting  the  events  that  are  supposed 
to  be  coincident ;  and  if  no  such  law  can  be  pointed  out,  to  look 
on  the  relation  as  possibly  casual.  Herein  lies  the  distinction 
between  religion  on  the  one  hand,  and  superstition  on  the 
other,  in  respect  of  the  view  which  they  take  of  Providence  ; — 
that  whereas  the  former  traces  up  every  occurrence  to  God,  and 
is  prepared  to  acknowledge  that  there  is  a  relation  between  one 
event  and  another,  only  when  there  is  evidence  that  God  hath 
instituted  bonds  of  union  between  them,  the  latter  is  ever  look- 
ing out  for  capricious  combinations  and  conspiracies  of  circum- 
stances, and  is  transferring  to  them  a  feeling  of  joy  or  of  fear, 
which  ought  as  a  sentiment  of  trust  and  reverential  awe  to  be 
reserved  for  God.  The  superstitious  man  is  not  so  anxious  to 
secure  the  favour  of  God  as  certain  auspicious  signs  and 
prognostications,  and  is  not  so  afraid  of  giving  offence  to  the 
Divine  law,  as  of  certain  ominous  seasons  and  conjunctures. 
The  light  of  science,  which  investigates  natural  law,  has  already 
put  to  flight  many  of  these  birds  of  night  which  disappear  in 
the  morning.  A  rigid  attention  to  moral  and  religious  law 
should  drive  away  the  remainder,  to  leave  us  to  contemplate, 
with  less  distraction,  the  real  mysteries  of  God's  providence,  em- 
ployed in  the  support  of  his  moral  and  religious  government. 

III.  When  may  we  regard  ourselves  as  entitled  to  fix  on 

THE  PRECISE  END  CONTEMPLATED  BY  GOD  IN  ANY  GIVEN  EVENT  ? 

We  may  safely  affirm,  in  reference  to  this  question,  that  God 
intends  to  produce,  by  the  event,  the  consequences  that  flow 
from  it  according  to  the  natural  ordinances  of  his  providence. 
He  undoubtedly  means  the  cause  to  produce  its  effects,  and  the 
train  of  causes  to  be  followed  by  its  train  of  consequences. 


THE  DIVINE  PROVIDENCE.  203 

But  may  he  not  intend  also  to  serve  other  ends,  not  following 
so  naturally  or  necessarily  ?  Most  assuredly  he  may.  But  it  is 
more  difficult  for  us  to  determine  specially,  and  in  any  given 
case,  what  these  ends  are.  Some  persons  decide  on  this  subject 
as  dogmatically  as  if  they  had  been  the  counsellors  of  Deity, 
or  let  into  all  the  secrets  of  his  government.  There  is  one  in- 
quiry, however,  which  we  should  always  make,  and  that  is, 
What  are  the  lessons  which  we  may  gather  for  our  own  personal 
instruction  ?  In  making  this  inquiry  in  an  humble  spirit,  we 
may,  if  guided  by  a  pure  moral  law  and  a  true  religion,  gather 
daily  lessons  from  the  dispensations  of  Providence.  In  doing 
so,  it  is  not  needful  to  determine  the  precise  ends  of  Deity.  Our 
primary  anxiety  should  be  to  determine  what  are  the  lessons 
which  we  should  learn  ;  and  if  we  are  enabled  to  gather  them, 
we  may  safely  conclude,  that  this  was  one  of  the  special  ends 
contemplated  in  the  wisdom  of  heaven.  If  it  be  needful  to  go 
farther,  we  must  ever  take  along  Avith  us  the  rules  previously 
laid  down.  We  may  always  connect  events  together  which 
have  a  physical  connexion  ;  and  in  regard  to  other  connexions, 
we  must  be  quite  sure  that  they  are  linked  by  the  moral  or  re- 
ligious laws  of  God.  The  winds  that  sunk  the  Spanish  Armada, 
which  threatened  at  once  the  Protestant  religion  and  the  liberties 
of  England ;  and,  again,  the  favourable  breezes  which  enabled 
William  of  Orange,  when  these  privileges  were  endangered,  to 
escape  the  fleet  that  was  ready  to  seize  him,  and  land  in  safety 
on  our  shores:*  these  are  providential  occurrences,  in  which 
pious  minds  have  ever  delighted  to  discover  the  hand  of  God  ; 
and  this,  too,  with  reason,  according  to  the  principles  which  we 

*  Mr.  Macaulay  says,  "  The  weather  had,  indeed,  served  the  Protestant  cause 
so  vrell,  that  some  men,  of  more  piety  than  judgment,  believed  the  ordinary  laws 
of  nature  to  have  been  suspended  for  the  preservation  of  the  liberty  and  religion 
of  England.  Exactly  a  hundred  years  before  this,  they  said  the  Armada,  invincible 
by  man,  had  been  scattered  by  the  wrath  of  God.  Civil  freedom  and  divine  truth 
were  again  in  jeopardy,  and  again  the  obedient  elements  had  fought  for  the  good 
cause.  The  wind  had  blown  strong  from  the  east,  while  the  Prince  wished  to  sail 
down  the  Channel ;  had  turned  to  the  south  when  he  wished  to  enter  Torbay ;  had 
sunk  to  a  calm  during  the  disembarkation ;  and  as  soon  as  the  disembarkation 
was  completed,  had  risen  to  a  storm,  and  had  met  the  pursuers  in  the  face." — 
Hist,  of  England,  vol.  ii.  We  have  quoted  this  language  for  the  purpose  of  express- 
ing our  astonishment,  that  a  mind  so  expanded  as  Mr.  Macaulay's  should  not  have 
seen  that,  instead  of  requiring  to  suspend  his  laws,  God  might  have  arranged 
*Hem  with  the  very  view  of  bringing  about  these  beneficent  results. 


204  METHOD  OF  INTERPRETING 

have  been  developing.  Nor  can  we  regard  as  less  striking  those 
internal  dissensions  which  drove  the  pilgrim  Fathers  from  Eng- 
land, to  found  in  the  far  west  a  country  which  should  acknow- 
ledge its  inferiority  to  England  only  in  this  respect,  that  the 
one  is  the  mother,  and  the  other  the  daughter.  History,  rightly 
interpreted,  shows  us  many  instances  of  national  crime  being 
followed  by  its  appropriate  punishment.  "  The  expulsion  of 
the  Moors,  the  most  industrious  and  valuable  inhabitants  of  the 
Peninsula,  has  entailed  weakness  upon  the  Spanish  monarchy, 
which  the  subsequent  lapse  of  two  centuries  has  been  unable  to 
repair.  The  reaction  against  the  Roman  atrocities  produced 
the  great  league,  of  which  "William  was  the  head  ;  it  sharpened 
the  swords  of  Eugene  and  Marlborough  ;  it  closed  in  mourning 
the  reign  of  Louis  XV.  Nor  did  the  national  punishment  stop 
here.  The  massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew,  and  revocation  of  the 
edict  of  Nantes,  were  the  chief,  among  remote  but  certain, 
causes  of  the  French  Revolution,  and  all  the  unutterable  miseries 
which  it  brought  upon  the  Bourbon  race,  and  the  professors  of 
the  Eomish  faith."* 

Mankind  have  in  all  ages  experienced  the  greatest  interest, 
and  yet  the  greatest  difficulty,  in  interpreting  those  events  of 
providence  which  are  afflictive  in  their  character,  f  We  have 
not  arrived  at  that  stage  of  our  investigation  at  which  we  may 
determine  precisely  the  meaning  of  physical  evil ;  but  it  is 
evident  that  the  ends  served  by  it  in  the  providence  of  God  are 
of  a  mixed  character. 

Sometimes  it  seems  to  be  punitive,  and  the  expression  of  the 
Divine  disapproval  of  sin.  We  can  take  no  lower  or  lesser  view 
of  it  in  some  of  its  forms. 

At  other  times  it  seems  to  be  preventive  of  evil.  There  are 
dark  tunnels  through  which  we  must  pass  to  speed  us  on  our 
way  ;  and  there  are  also  circuitous  routes  prescribed  to  preserve 
us  from  the  danger  lying  in  the  shorter  path.  In  every  shape 
in  which  it  may  come,  affliction  is  disagreeable  at  the  time,  but 
it  is,  notwithstanding,  often  like  the  mantle  of  snow,  which  in 
these  colder  regions  covers  the  springing  grain  in  winter — a 
means  of  preservation  from  a  greater  and  more  fatal  scourge. 

*  Alison's  Marlborough. 

f  See  this  whole  subjeet  treated  in  the  light  of  Scripture,  and  with  the  results 
without  the  processes  of  the  highest  philosophy,  in  the  two  admirable  works  of 
Dr.  Buchanan  on  Affliction. 


THE  DIVINE  PROVIDENCE.  205 

Not  unfrequently  it  is  purifying  in  its  nature.  It  is  in  the 
furnace  that  the  dross  is  separated. 

Now,  it  is  often  difficult  to  determine,  as  to  any  given  afflic- 
tion, whether  it  is  meant  to  accomplish  the  one  or  the  other  of 
these  purposes,  or  whether  it  may  not  be  subservient  to  them 
all.  Here,  as  in  regard  to  every  dispensation,  we  are  on  safe 
ground,  when,  in  the  first  instance,  we  observe  God  in  every 
event  ;  and  when,  in  the  second  place,  we  inquire  what  are  the 
lessons  which  it  is  fitted  to  read  us.  This  should  be  the  habit 
of  every  soul  which  is  waiting  with  becoming  obeisance  upon 
the  teaching  of  its  Creator.  When  we  make  the  farther  inquiry, 
What  is  the  end  contemplated  by  God,  in  ordaining  this  event 
or  that  event  ?  difficulties  thicken  around  us.  One  answer  we 
should  always  be  ready  to  give,  and  that  is,  that  the  human 
mind  cannot  discover  all  the  purposes  which  may  be  intended 
by  any  of  the  operations  of  God.  For  he  accomplishes  a  variety 
of  ends  by  the  same  means  ;  and  it  would  be  presumptuous  in 
us  to  conclude  that  we  had  discovered  all  the  objects  contem- 
plated in  any  one  of  his  dispensations.  One  salutary  reflection 
will  rise  in  every  thinking  mind  on  the  survey  of  affliction  under 
all  its  various  forms — that  it  is  a  blessed  thing  that  God  has 
kept  such  agency  in  his  own  hand,  instead  of  committing  it  to 
man ;  for  trials,  like  powerful  medicines,  need  to  be  dispensed 
in  proper  quantities  and  by  a  careful  hand,  lest  there  be  one 
drop  too  little  or  too  much. 

Great  caution  must  at  all  times  be  exercised  in  deciding  upon 
what  are  supposed  to  be  the  judgments  of  heaven.  The  Great 
Teacher,  who  has  given  us  such  enlarged  and  comforting  views 
of  the  Divine  guardianship,  is  careful  to  warn  us  against  the 
influence  of  prejudice  and  passion  in  the  interpretation  of  the 
proceedings  of  God  towards  our  fellow-men.  "  Suppose  ye  that 
these  Galileans  wTere  sinners  above  all  the  Galileans,  because 
they  suffered  such  things  ?  I  tell  you,  Nay  ;  but,  except  ye  re- 
pent, ye  shall  all  likewise  perish.  Or  those  eighteen,  on  whom 
the  tower  of  Siloam  fell,  and  slew  them,  think  ye  that  they  were 
sinners  above  all  men  that  dwelt  in  Jerusalem  ?  I  tell  you, 
Nay  ;  but,  except  ye  repent,  ye  shall  all  likewise  perish."  The 
error  of  the  Jews  manifestly  consisted  in  yielding  to  an  unchari- 
table temper  of  mind.  The  same  error,  proceeding  from  the 
same  spirit,  is  still  exhibited.     If  an  individual  has  always  been 


206  METHOD  OF  INTERPRETING 

suspected  of  some  secret  crime,  an  extraordinary  reverse  of  for- 
tune is  thought  sufficient  to  establish  it.  If  great  and  apparently 
lasting  prosperity  is  suddenly  changed  into  unexpected  adversity, 
it  is  thought  to  be  in  righteous  retribution  for  some  act  of  fraud 
or  dishonesty ;  and  men  begin  to  search  for  cases  in  which  he 
defrauded  the  orphan,  or  overreached  the  simple,  or  gratified  his 
own  selfishness  at  the  expense  of  the  public  good.  It  is  not  at 
the  time  when  prosperity  is  disposed  to  smile  on  the  individual, 
that  these  insinuations  are  made  and  pass  current :  at  these 
moments,  men  have  not  the  courage  boldly  to  face  the  culprit 
and  denounce  the  crime ;  but,  like  cowards,  they  wait  till  he 
has  been  laid  prostrate  by  the  hand  of  another  ;  they  only  per- 
secute those  whom  the  Lord  has  already  smitten,  and  hasten  to 
add  reproach  to  misery,  and  insult  to  suffering. 

But  still,  we  may  in  some  cases  confidently  discover  the  judg- 
ments of  God.  There  are  certain  physical  evils  which  proceed 
directly  from  sin — as  the  poverty  which  follows  extravagance, 
and  the  disease  which  springs  from  intemperance  and  other 
vices ;  and  we  are  only  referring  the  effect  to  its  cause  when  we 
connect  the  two  together.  In  other  cases,  also,  the  connexion, 
being  always  of  a  moral  or  religious  character,  may  be  so  visible 
as  at  once  to  compel  every  man  to  discover  the  overruling  ar- 
rangements of  heaven,  in  making  physical  events  encourage  the 
good  or  punish  the  evil.  But,  in  all  such  cases,  both  facts  must 
be  ascertained,  and  each  on  its  own  independent  evidence,  before 
the  relation  can  be  discovered.  We  must  not  conclude  that  any 
given  deed  is  sinful,  merely  because  it  has  been  followed  by 
certain  prejudicial  consequences.  But  when  the  deed  is  proved 
to  be  sinful  on  other  evidence,  we  may  connect  the  two  together, 
for  it  looks  as  if  God  had  connected  them.  We  are  not  to  con- 
clude that  any  individual  has  been  guilty  of  secret  or  highly 
aggravated  sin,  merely  because  he  has  been  exposed  to  affliction. 
This  was  the  error  of  the  friends  of  Job,  and  for  which  they 
were  severely  reprimanded.  But  when  he  is  known,  on  indepen- 
dent evidence,  to  have  sinned,  we  are  warranted,  whether  the 
sin  be  physically  connected  with  the  suffering  or  no,  in  tracing 
a  connexion  appointed  by  God  himself. 

It  is  comparatively  seldom  that  we  have  such  a  minute  ac- 
quaintance with  every  incident  in  the  past  life  of  a  neighbour, 
as  to  be  able  to  determine  the  precise  end  contemplated  in  any 


THE  DIVINE  PROVIDENCE.  207 

visitation  of  G-od  towards  him.  In  some  cases,  indeed,  the  con- 
nexion is  manifest  to  the  man's  neighbours,  or  to  the  world  at 
large ;  as  when  intemperance  and  excess  lead  to  poverty  and 
disease,  and  cunning  raises  up  to  distrust,  and  is  caught  in  the 
net  which  it  laid  for  others.  In  other  cases,  it  is  visible  only  to 
the  individual  himself,  or  his  most  intimate  friends.  In  all 
cases,  it  is  easier  to  determine  the  meaning  of  the  judgments  of 
God  in  reference  to  ourselves,  than  in  their  reference  to  others, 
when  they  are  exposed  to  them.  For  being  acquainted  with  all 
the  incidents  of  our  past  life,  we  may  trace  a  connexion  between 
deeds  which  we  have  done,  and  trials  sent  upon  us — a  connexion 
which  no  other  is  intended  to  seek,  or  so  much  as  to  suspect. 
While  affliction  can  in  no  case  prove  the  existence  of  sin  not 
otherwise  established,  yet  it  may  be  the  means  of  leading  the 
person  afflicted  to  inquire  whether  he  may  not  in  his  past  life 
have  committed  some  sin,  of  which  this  is  the  punishment  or 
cure.  Here,  as  in  many  other  cases,  the  rule  is  to  be  strict  in 
judging  ourselves,  but  slow  in  judgiug  others. 

SECT.  V. — PRACTICAL   INFLUENCE    OF   THE   VARIOUS  VIEWS  WHICH 
MAY  BE  TAKEN  OF  DIVINE  PROVIDENCE. 

An  ancient  heathen  philosopher  and  historian  has  drawn  an 
ingenious  comparison  between  atheism  and  superstition.*  With 
the  additional  light  which  we  now  enjoy,  we  find  it  needful  to 
multiply  the  objects  compared,  and  we  may  be  enabled  to  form 
a  juster  estimate  of  each. 

Some  see  Grod  in  none  of  his  works.  This  is  the  error  of  a 
mind  besotted  by  passion,  or  stung  by  an  evil  conscience,  or 
which  has  lost  itself  in  the  mazes  of  proud  and  rash  speculation. 
It  is  Atheism.  If  it  could  be  cured  by  reason,  we  have  abund- 
ant evidence  to  present  to  it.  But  atheism  is  a  crime,  rather 
than  a  mere  intellectual  error.  It  is  to  be  cured  only  by  its 
being  so  humbled  as  to  be  constrained  to  attend  to  the  traces  of 
an  intelligent  mind,  which  the  Creator  has  imprinted  on  all  his 
works  around  us,  and  of  a  G-overnor  and  Judge  imprinted  on 
the  heart  within. 

Again,  there  are  some,  and  their  number  is  multiplying  with 
advancing  science,  who  cannot  but  see  prevailing  order  in  the 

*  Plutarch  on  Superstition. 


208  INFLUENCE  OF  VARIOUS  VIEWS 

works  of  God,  and  are  prepared  to  appreciate  their  beauty,  but 
who  have  a  difficulty  in  distinguishing  between  them  and  the 
Creator.  Observing  a  universal  harmony,  they  can  rise  to  no 
higher  conception  of  deity  than  as  a  principle  of  order  inhabit- 
ing the  universe,  but  not  to  be  distinguished  from  it.  It  is 
Pantheism.  It  is  the  error  of  a  mind  delighting  to  reflect  on 
order  and  law,  but  with  no  adequate  conception  of  the  moral 
and  the  spiritual.  It  overlooks  the  conscious  personality  within 
us  which  declares  that  we  are  distinct  from  the  universe,  distinct 
from  God,  and  that  therefore  God  is  not  all ;  and  it  sets  aside 
that  feeling  of  free-will  and  responsibility,  which  announces  that 
we  must  give  account  of  our  conduct  to  another,  and  that  there- 
fore all  is  not  God.  Were  it  disposed  to  leave  its  own  idle 
phantasies  and  to  follow  us,  we  would  show  that  it  is  in  error, 
by  pointing  to  the  traces  of  a  ruling  as  well  as  an  inherent 
principle,  of  a  governor  as  well  as  a  pervader  of  the  universe ; 
we  would  point  to  the  skilful  adjustment  of  the  laws  of  nature, 
which,  as  distinguished  from  the  laws  of  nature  themselves,  is 
specially  called  the  Providence  of  God,  and  which  gives  evidence 
of  a  power  in  nature,  but  which  is  also  above  nature,  acting  upon 
it,  without  being  acted  upon  in  return. 

Farther,  there  are  those  who  perceive  God  only  in  certain  of 
his  works,  in  the  more  striking  agents  of  nature,  and  the  more 
startling  events  of  his  providence,  in  the  lightning's  flash  and  the 
meteor's  glare,  in  all  unexpected  occurrences,  in  sudden  eleva- 
tions or  reverses  of  fortune,  in  pestilence,  disease,  and  death,  but 
not  in  the  calmer  but  no  less  powerful  and  wonderful  agents  ever 
in  operation — the  sunshine,  the  revolving  seasons,  the  continued 
enjoyment  of  health,  and  the  munificent  provision  made  for  the 
sustenance  of  man,  and  the  supply  of  his  varied  wants.  God  is 
seen  by  them,  but  not  in  all  his  works — in  those  only  which 
awe  the  imagination,  which  excite  the  fancy,  or  which  move  the 
passions  of  the  heart.  It  is  Superstition.  It  springs  from  a 
conscience  awakened,  but  not  pacified,  in  a  mind  under  fear, 
but  yet  without  faith.  If  its  restlessness  would  allow  it  calmly 
to  consider  any  subject,  we  would  widen  its  range  of  view  so  as 
to  make  it  embrace  all  that  is  benign  and  peaceful,  all  that  is 
orderly  and  benevolent  in  the  works  of  God.  We  would  make 
it  view  the  earth  when  it  is  bathed  in  loveliness  in  the  calm  of  a 
summer  evening,  as  well  as  when  it  is  agitated  by  storm  ;  and 


WHICH  MAY  BE  TAKEN  OF  PROVIDENCE.  209 

look  on  the  heavens,  not  only  when  covered  with  angry  clouds, 
but  when  their  face  is  serene  in  the  softest  blue,  or  shining  in 
brilliancy  in  the  light  of  the  thousand  lamps  which  they  nightly 
kindle. 

Finally,  there  are  those  who  discover  reigning  design  in  all 
God's  works,  and  so  are  opposed  to  Atheism ;  who  notice  evi- 
dence of  a  power  separate  from  and  above  nature,  a  pure  and 
benevolent  God,  and  so  have  extricated  themselves  from  the  toils 
of  Pantheism ;  who  observe  a  present  God  in  the  more  striking 
agents  which  he  employs,  but  who  trace  him,  too,  in  those  daily 
gifts  which  are  not  less  beneficent  because  they  are  constantly 
bestowed,  and  in  those  regular  arrangements  of  Providence, 
which  are  not  less  wonderful  because  they  may  have  become 
familiar  to  us.  It  is  a  sound  and  enlightened  faith.  It  keeps 
the  mind  in  a  vigorous  and  healthy  state.  The  atmosphere  of 
which  it  breathes  is  at  once  strengthening  and  refreshing — unlike 
that  air,  all  azote,  of  which  the  Atheist  breathes  till  every  living 
affection  is  chilled  into  death  ;  or  that  air,  so  close  and  sultry,  in 
which  the  Pantheist  wastes  a  dreamy  and  useless  existence  ;  or 
that  air,  now  so  highly  oxygenated,  and  now  so  exhausted  of  the 
principle  of  life,  so  elevating  and  depressing  by  turns,  in  which 
the  victim  of  superstition  passes  a  life  of  restlessness  and  fever. 

The  atheist  closes  his  eyelids,  and  asserts  that  there  is  no 
"God,  because  he  will  not  open  his  eyes  to  behold  the  traces  of 
him.  The  philosophical  and  poetical  pantheist,  the  worshipper 
of  nature,  opens  his  eyes  only  half-way ;  and,  amidst  the  many 
lovely  "  dreams  that  wave  before  the  half-shut  eye,"  he  refuses 
to  gaze  upon  the  still  lovelier  but  more  dazzling  image  of  a  holy 
God.  The  victim  of  superstition  opens  and  shuts  his  eyes  by 
turns — opens  them  when  there  is  anything  to  alarm  or  please, 
but  shuts  them  against  all  that  might  enlighten  the  reason,  or 
mould  the  character  after  the  likeness  of  Divine  perfection. 
True  faith  opens  the  eyes,  and  keeps  them  fully  directed  upon 
the  glorious  works  of  nature,  and  wonderful  events  of  provi- 
dence, till  they  rise,  in  glowing  admiration,  to  the  perception  of 
a  light  ever  shining,  with  unchanged  and  unchangeable  lustre, 
upon  a  universe  rejoicing  in  its  beams ;  and  they  continue  to 
gaze,  till,  "  dazzled  by  excess  of  light,"  they  shut  themselves  in 
holy  meditation  and  devout  adoration. 

Atheism  is  a  system  cold,  and  damp,  and  dark,  as  the  place 

o 


210  INFLUENCE  OF  THE  VARIOUS  VIEWS 

of  the  dead.  Pantheism  shows  us  a  beautiful  mansion — but 
the  sight  is  melancholy  ;  we  have  no  desire  to  enter  the  build- 
ins  for  it  is  without  an  inhabitant ;  there  is  no  warm  heart  to 
beat,  no  just  mind  to  rule,  in  these  large  but  tenantless  halls. 
It  gives  us  illusions  which  "  serve  to  alleviate  nothing,  to  solve 
nothing,  to  illuminate  nothing ;  they  are  vapours  which  may, 
indeed,  show  bright  and  gaudy  colours  when  seen  at  a  great 
distance,  but  in  the  bosom  of  which,  if  one  enters,  there  is 
nothing  but  chill  and  gloom."*  Superstition  shows  a  strange 
land — such  as  the  eye  pictures  in  the  twilight,  when  objects  are 
imperfectly  seen — with  scenes  ever  shifting  with  the  capricious 
temper  of  those  who  rule  over  them  without  grace  and  without 
dignity,  who  are  now  sportive  and  now  revengeful,  but  never 
just  and  never  benevolent,  while  those  subjected  to  their  power 
alternate  between  wild  merriment  and  excruciating  misery. 
True  faith  opens  our  eyes  on  a  world  on  which,  no  doubt, 
there  rests  a  mysterious  cloud,  rising  from  the  damps  of  sin,  but 
above  which,  shining  with  bright  and  steady  beams,  there  is  a 
luminary  before  which  that  cloud  must  at  last  fade  away  and 
disappear,  and  leave  a  land  of  perpetual  calm  and  never-failing 
light. 

The  atheist  is  bold  and  arrogant,  but  it  is  with  the  audacity 
of  a  man  who  is  contending  with  an  inward  principle.  Plutarch 
is  wrong  in  saying  that  he  is  free  from  all  fear  and  perturbations 
of  mind.  You  may  observe  that  he  is  awe-struck  at  the  void 
which  he  hath  made,  and  that  he  starts  at  the  sounds  which  he 
strikes  up  to  relieve  the  sepulchral  silence.  If  he  fears  not  God, 
he  fears  the  next  event,  dark  and  horrid,  which  blind  fate  may 
evolve.  He  boasts  that  he  is  above  the  fear  of  punishment ;  but 
he  may  be  oppressed  by  a  dread  of  pain,  and  he  knows  of  no 
comforter  to  cheer  him  under  it.  The  pantheist  wanders  in  a 
lovely  region,  but  he  meets  there  with  no  friend  to  cheer,  to 
sympathize  with,  to  support,  to  comfort  him.  He  talks  of  com- 
munion with  nature,  or  the  spirit  of  nature;  but  his  idea  is  ever 
evaporating  and  vanishing  into  nothing;  and  the  real  thought  is 
ever  pressed  upon  him,  that  the  whole  is  an  illusion ;  for  there  is 
no  living  being  to  feel  responsive  to  his  feelings,  and  his  soul 
saddens  under  a  sense  of  utter  loneliness.  He  feels  like  a  man 
shut  up  in  an  abode  of  surpassing  magnificence,  but  without  a 
*  North  British  Review,  1846,  No.  I.,  John  Foster. 


WHICH  MAY  BE  TAKEN  OF  PROVIDENCE.  211 

friend  to  whom  he  can  unbosom  himself; — he  is  worse  than 
Rasselas  in  his  Happy  Valley.  He  perceives  that  all  is  regular 
and  harmonious,  but  still  there  is  something  wanting ;  he  is 
alone,  and  "it  is  not  good  for  man  to  be  alone,"  in  respect  either 
of  the  creature  or  the  Creator.  Such  is  his  feeling,  even  when 
nature  wears  a  smiling  aspect,  and  events  are  prosperous ;  and 
when  the  heavens  lower,  and  affliction  casts  its  shadow  over  his 
path,  and  all  things  in  this  lower  world  seem  dark,  and  dreary, 
and  sullen,  his  melancholy  is  soured  into  discontent,  and  irritated 
into  murmuring  and  complaint.  He  complains,  and  no  one 
answers,  and  his  spirit  is  chafed  by  its  own  eludings.  Ever 
friendless,  he  feels  now  what  it  is  to  be  friendless  in  the  hour  of 
trial.  The  superstitious  man  has  his  moments  of  high  ecstasies 
and  ethereal  pleasure,  of  convulsive  action  and  feverish  joy,  but 
succeeded,  ever  and  anon,  by  periods  of  exhaustion  and  weakness, 
of  distaste  to  and  incapacity  for  exertion.  After  his  strength 
has  spent  itself,  he  feels,  in  the  ethereal  atmosphere  of  which  he 
breathes,  like  those  travellers  who  ascend  the  Alps  or  Andes ; 
and  who,  when  they  reach  a  certain  elevation,  experience  a 
quickness  of  breathing,  an  acceleration  of  pulse,  a  loss  of  appetite, 
and  nausea,  which  issue  in  a  complete  prostration  of  strength,  and 
irresistible  somnolency.  His  very  rest  is  like  that  produced  by 
opiate  drugs — he  awakes  from  it  in  startling  alarms,  and  with 
darker  forebodings.  With  occasional  joy,  he  is  yet  without 
peace ;  harassed  by  fear,  he  is  without  genuine  trust  and  con- 
fidence ;  scared  by  expected  punishment,  he  is  never  allured  by 
deep  and  fervent  love.  It  is  an  habitual  faith,  looking  to  the 
living  and  loving  God,  which  alone  is  fitted  to  impart  cheerful- 
ness to  the  soul  at  all  times,  and  consolation  in  the  seasons  of 
trouble  and  of  death. 

The  atheist  is  rash  in  his  actions,  dark  in  his  passions,  is  apt 
to  be  proud  in  prosperity,  and  comfortless  in  affliction;  and  when 
wearied  of  life,  he  vainly  attempts  to  terminate  his  existence  by 
an  act  which  may  indeed  kill  the  body,  but  leaves  the  soul  to  be 
tormented  by  its  passions,  more  furiously  than  ever — by  scor- 
pions instead  of  whips.  The  pantheist  professes  to  follow  nature, 
and,  making  no  struggle  to  rise  above  it,  he  is  carried  along  with 
the  stream ;  and  feeling  himself  to  be  a  mere  bubble  upon  its 
surface,  he  becomes  a  vain  and  empty  trifler.  He  is  probably  an 
idle  dreamer,  or  a  sipper  of  the  sweets  of  literature,  an  indulger 


212  INFLUENCE  OF  THE  VARIOUS  VIEWS 

in  fine  sentiment,  or  a  wild  speculatist ;  and,  with  no  great  end 
before  him,  he  fails  in  accomplishing  any  work  that  may  pro- 
mote the  welfare  of  the  race.  The  superstitious  man  vacillates 
between  hot  and  cold,  between  hope  and  fear,  between  self- 
confidence  and  despondency.  He  is  afraid  to  act,  lest  offence 
be  given  to  the  God  he  fears  ;  and  afraid  not  to  act,  for  the  same 
reason.  He  is  ever  restless,  but  his  activity  may  be  as  frequently 
exercised  in  spreading  misery  as  in  propagating  good.  It  is 
faith  in  a  living  God,  the  Governor  of  nature,  which  calls  forth 
the  energies  of  heaven-born  souls,  which  sets  them  forth  in  the 
work  of  relieving  misery,  uprooting  corruption,  stemming  the 
tide  of  depravity,  and  helping  on  the  amelioration  of  the  race  in 
knowledge  and  virtue. 

It  is  curious  to  observe  how  extremes  meet,  just  as  we  find 
the  farthest  east  and  west  meeting  in  the  figures  constructed 
on  our  globes.  Atheism  and  pantheism  may  seem  to  be  utterly 
opposed,  and  yet  they  agree  in  more  than  they  differ.  The 
pantheist,  when  compelled  to  explain  himself,  is  landed  in  athe- 
ism; while  atheism,  seeking  to  screen  its  nakedness,  would  fondly 
clothe  itself  in  some  of  the  illusions  of  pantheism.  The  regular 
laws,  and  the  mechanical  successions  which  the  one  recognises, 
do  not  differ  essentially  from  the  principles  of  order  and  develop- 
ment, of  which  the  other  delights  to  discourse  so  profoundly,  and 
jet  withal  so  unmeaningly.  The  ideas  of  which  the  one  dreams 
are  as  difficult  to  grasp  as  the  blank  void  which  the  other  creates. 
It  has  often  been  observed  that  superstition,  in  the  natural  recoil 
of  the  human  mind,  leads  to  atheism.  "  Superstition,"  says 
Plutarch,  "  both  led  to  the  production  of  atheism,  and  when  it 
was  gendered,  furnished  an  apology — not,  indeed,  just  and  fair, 
but  still  not  devoid  of  plausibility — for  its  continuance.  For  it 
is  not  because  persons  see  anything  blameworthy  in  the  heavens, 
or  faulty  and  irregular  in  the  stars,  in  the  seasons,  in  the  revolu- 
tions and  motions  of  the  sun  around  the  earth  which  are  the 
cause  of  day  and  night,  in  the  nourishment  provided  for  living 
creatures,  or  in  the  production  of  fruits,  that  they  concluded  that 
there  is  no  God  in  the  universe  ;  but  the  ridiculous  works  and 
manifestations  of  superstition — its  spell-words,  its  movements, 
its  juggleries,  its  charms,  its  circumambulations,  its  drummings, 
its  impure  purgations,  its  filthy  acts  of  supposed  chastity,  its 
barbarous  and  unlawful  inflictions  of  punishment  and  affronts 


WHICH  MAY  BE  TAKEN  OF  PROVIDENCE.  213 

close  by  temples — all  these  give  occasion  to  some  to  say  that  it 
were  better  there  were  no  gods,  than  that  there  were  gods  who 
accept  of  and  delight  in  these  things — so  tyrannical,  so  impera- 
tive in,  and  so  easily  offended  by,  trifles/'*  But  Plutarch  is 
mistaken,  when  in  the  same  passage  he  tells  us  that  atheism  is 
on  no  occasion  the  cause  of  superstition  ;  for  atheism,  by  a  recoil 
equally  natural,  issues  in  superstition.  The  wisest  men  would, 
with  Bacon,  rather  believe  all  the  fables  of  the  Koran,  than  be 
driven  to  the  conclusion  that  this  universe  is  without  a  Creator 
and  Governor.  When  the  mind  feels  that  scepticism  hath  left  it 
nothing  to  stand  on,  it  will  take  refuge  in  the  first  superstition 
which  offers  itself  It  thus  happens,  that  while  the  two  may 
seem  to  be  opposed  in  their  very  nature,  they  yet  produce  and 
assist  each  other ;  and  there  are  individuals  and  nations  ever 
vacillating  between  the  two — now  betaking  themselves  to  the 
one,  and  now  to  the  other,  and  ever  swinging  like  a  pendulum 
past  the  point  of  rest. 

None  of  these  can  present  an  acceptable  service  to  God.  The 
pantheist  professes  to  see  God  in  everything,  but  in  reality  sees 
him  in  nothing.  He  talks  of  the  communion  which  he  holds  with 
the  spirit  of  the  universe,  but  it  is  a  mere  communion  with  his 
own  thoughts.  He  believes  just  as  little  as  the  atheist  in  a  living 
deity — in  a  ruling  power,  in  a  moral  governor,  a  holy  sovereign, 
or  a  righteous  judge.  Nor  can  God  be  pleased,  with  the  perverted 
adoration  which  superstition  offers.  Its  worship  lias  always  been 
a  strange  mixture  of  horror  and  of  levity — of  laceration  and 
licentiousness.  The  very  idea  entertained  of  God  is  an  affront 
offered  to  him.  "  What  sayest  thou  ?  Is  he  impious  who  thinks 
that  there  are  no  gods  ?"  asks  Plutarch  ;  "and  he  who  believes 
them  to  be  such  as  the  superstitious  man  describes  them,  not 
much  more  impious  ?  For  myself,  I  would  rather  that  men 
should  say  regarding  me  that  there  was  no  such  person  as 
Plutarch,  than  that  they  should  say  that  Plutarch  was  a  person 
unsteady,  changeable,  prone  to  passion,  exacting  revenge  for  in- 
advertences, offended  with  trifles." 

When  the  faith  is  not  a  faith  in  a  living  God,  it  will  produce 
no  living  affection.  When  no  love  is  supposed  to  reside  in  the 
Divine  mind,  no  love  to  him  will  be  kindled  in  our  bosoms ;  and 
there  will  be  none  of  that  cheerful  obedience  which  proceeds  from 

*  PLut&rch  on  Superstition,  12. 


214  INFLUENCE  OF  THE  VARIOUS  VIEWS 

affection.  The  heart  of  the  atheist  becomes  as  blank  as  his 
system  ;  and  the  service  of  the  pantheist  has  as  little  emotion  as 
the  supposed  principle  which  governs  the  universe.  It  is  curious, 
too,  to  observe  how  superstition  lands  us  practically  in  the  same 
consequences  as  the  atheism  and  the  pantheism  which  it  so  much 
abhors.  The  mind  which  discovers  God  only  so  far  as  its  feelings 
are  moved  and  its  fears  awakened,  will  feel  itself  beyond  restraint 
when  there  is  no  such  excitement.  Hence  the  abject  and  craven 
superstition,  which  prompts  to  trembling  and  despair  when  the 
man  feels  himself  to  be  in  circumstances  of  terror,  is  quite  com- 
patible with  the  most  unbridled  indulgence  and  unblushing 
criminality,  when  the  mind  is  freed  from  the  pressure  of  alarm. 
He  who  sees  God  only  at  certain  times,  and  in  certain  places,  as 
in  temples  and  groves,  will  feel  as  if  he  were  beyond  his  cogniz- 
ance and  control  in  all  other  positions.  Hence  we  find  the 
earnest  (we  cannot  say  spiritual)  worshipper  at  the  altar  cheating 
in  the  market-place,  and  indulging  the  basest  propensities  of  his 
nature,  when  he  thinks  himself  under  the  clouds  of  concealment. 
Borrow  is  not  relating  anything  contrary  to  human  nature,  when 
he  tells  us  of  the  gipsy  mother  who  said  to  her  children,  "  You 
may  go  and  steal,  now  that  you  have  said  your  prayers." 

Whatever  these  systems  may  differ  in,  they  all  agree  in  this, 
that  they  are  not  fitted  to  lay  an  effectual  restraint  on  pride,  on 
lust,  on  passion,  and  the  other  evil  principles  of  the  human  heart. 
The  atheist  glories  in  the  circumstance  that  he  is  unrestrained : 
it  is  one  of  the  supposed  advantages  of  his  system.  Not  that  he 
thereby  attains  to  greater  freedom  ;  for  the  pride  which  he  has 
called  in  acts  as  the  Saxons  did,  when  the  ancient  Britons  invited 
them  to  their  assistance  against  their  northern  neighbours — it 
proves  a  sterner  master  than  the  power  from  which  he  wished  to 
be  delivered.  Nor  will  the  cobwebs  which  the  dreamy  pantheist 
weaves  be  able  to  restrain  the  rising  passion.  This  smoke  can- 
not be  made  to  face  the  wind.  Nay,  the  pleasure  and  lust  by 
which  he  is  tempted  will  not  experience  much  difficulty  in  in- 
ducing the  loose  and  accommodating  system  to  weave  them  into 
their  laws  and  principles ;  and  evil  will  be  allowed,  as  a  step 
necessary  to  the  accomplishment  of  what  is  good.  As  to  practical 
influence,  the  mystic  faith  of  the  pantheist  differs  from  the  absolute 
unbelief  of  the  atheist,  as  the  vapours  which  the  waters  exhale, 
and  the  moon  tinges  with  her  beams,  differ  from  nonentity.     No3 


WHICH  MAY  BE  TAKEN  OF  PROVIDENCE.  215 

will  the  irregular  impulses  of  superstition  be  able  to  stem  the 
ever-flowing  torrent.  With  a  variety  of  impelling,  but  no  regu- 
lating principles,  he  is  driven  to  or  from  his  religious  offices,  to 
or  from  his  favourite  indulgences,  according  to  the  direction  of 
the  current  which  happens  to  prevail  at  the  time. 

Still  less  can  these  systems  quicken,  refine,  and  spiritualize 
the  soul,  impart  to  it  a  steady  cheerfulness,  or  become  an  ever- 
flowing  source  of  comfort.  Such  effects  cannot  follow  from  a 
scheme  which  gives  no  God,  or  a  God  without  moral  qualities, 
or  a  God  supposed  to  be  capricious.  These  effects  can  flow  only 
from  belief  in  a  God,  the  governor  and  judge  of  all,  ever  re- 
straining and  punishing,  as  he  ever  hates  sin,  and  yet  withal  as 
loving  and  merciful  as  he  is  just  and  holy. 

SECT.  VI. — METHOD  OF  ANSWERING  PRAYER,  AND  FURTHERING 

SPIRITUAL  ENDS. 

Prayer  is  about  the  most  elevated  state  of  thought  and  feeling 
of  which  the  mind  is  susceptible,  reaching  higher  than  the 
imagination  of  the  poet  when  his  eye  is  most  excited,  and  his 
fancy  takes  its  wildest  flights  ;  embracing  more  than  the  capa- 
cious thoughts  of  the  philosopher,  at  the  time  when  he  has  got 
the  glimpse  of  some  bright  discovery  just  circling,  like  the  sun, 
above  the  horizon,  and  throwing  a  flood  of  light  on  objects 
before  wrapt  in  twilight  obscurity.  Can  our  understandings 
comprehend  anything  more  enlarged  than  an  omnipresent  God  ? 
Can  our  wisdom  be  more  profoundly  occupied  than  in  fathom- 
ing the  depths  of  the  Divine  counsels  ?  Can  our  imaginations 
mount  higher  than  those  third  heavens  in  which  the  Divinity 
sits  enthroned  ?  Can  our  faith  and  love  repose  anywhere  more 
securely  or  delightfully  than  on  the  word  and  faithfulness  of 
God  ?  How  can  the  whole  soul  be  so  nobly  or  profitably  em- 
ployed as  in  holding  communion  with  its  Maker  ?  There  is  no 
affection  of  the  mind  which  is  not  engaged  in  prayer,  except  it 
be  the  baser  and  the  more  depraved  ones  of  our  nature.  Here 
is  reverential  awe  stript  of  all  the  baseness  of  mere  fear  ;  here  is 
hope,  not  the  mere  hope  of  earthly  bliss,  but  of  the  favour  of 
God,  which,  when  enjoyed,  is  the  fullest  bliss.  Here  is  faith, 
feeling  itself  firm  and  immovable  in  that  being  on  whom  it 
rests  ;  and  here  is  love,  kindled  at  the  sight  of  everlasting  love. 


216  METHOD  OF  ANSWERING  PRAYER, 

True  prayer  quickens  the  soul  without  agitating  it ;  as  the  river 
is  most  interesting  when  there  is  a  ripple  upon  its  surface  to 
show  that  it  is  moving  ;  as  the  sky  is  most  beautiful  when  there 
is  enough  of  breeze  to  clear  away  the  mists  and  damps  that  have 
been  exhaled  from  the  earth,  but  no  storm  to  disturb  its  serenity. 

Prayer,  when  engaged  in,  in  spirit  and  in  truth,  free  from 
pride  and  the  troublings  of  the  passions,  contains  within  itself 
its  own  answer,  in  the  heavenly  calm  and  repose  which  it  com- 
municates. Like  every  other  good  act,  it  is  its  own.  reward. 
When  thus  spread  out  before  God,  heaven  itself  seems  to  descend 
upon  the  soul,  as  we  have  seen  the  sky  reflected  on  the  bosom 
of  a  tranquil  lake  spread  out  beneath  it.  He  who  cultivates  a 
devotional  spirit  is  like  the  earth  in  its  orbit,  guided  by  a  central 
power,  and  illuminated  by  a  central  light,  and  carrying  every- 
where a  circumambient  atmosphere,  with  a  life-giving  and 
refreshing  influence. 

Some  one  illustrates  the  power  of  prayer  by  the  case  of  a  man 
in  a  small  boat  laying  hold  of  a  large  ship  ;  and  who,  if  he  does 
not  seem  to  move  the  large  vessel,  at  least  moves  the  small 
vessel  towards  it.  He  would  thus  shew  how  prayer,  even  though 
it  could  not  directly  move  God  towards  the  suppliant,  might  yet 
move  the  suppliant  towards  God,  and  bring  the  two  parties 
closer  to  each  other. 

This  is  truth,  but  not  the  whole  truth.  We  fear  that  no  one 
will  be  induced  to  pray  for  the  mere  pleasure  of  the  prayer ; 
nor  from  the  hope,  that  though  God  is  not  moved  by  it,  he 
himself  may  be  improved.  There  would  be  an  idea  of  illusion 
(not  to  say  hypocrisy)  accompanying  this  feeling,  which  must 
render  the  prayer,  even  if  persevered  in,  powerless  in  its  effects 
on  the  man  himself,  as  well  as  upon  God.  After  hearing  a 
sermon  preached  by  Dr.  Leechman,  in  which  he  dwelt  upon  the 
power  of  prayer  to  render  the  wishes  it  expressed  more  ardent 
and  passionate,  Hume  remarked  with  great  justice,  "We  can 
make  use  of  no  expression,  or  even  thought,  in  prayers  and 
entreaties,  whi(«h  does  not  imply  that  these  prayers  have  an 
influence."*  Prayer  can  accomplish  the  ends  referred  to  by 
Leechman,  only  when  it  proceeds  from  a  living  faith  in  God,  as 
at  once  the  hearer  and  the  answerer  of  prayer.  In  this  respect 
there  is  a  remarkable  analogy  between  the  influence  of  the 

*  Letter  to  Baron  Mure,  in  Burton's  Life  of  Hume. 


AND  FURTHERING  SPIRITUAL  ENDS.  217 

moral,  and  that  of  the  religious,  affections.  All  the  virtues  are 
pleasurable  in  themselves,  and  lead  to  beneficial  results  ;  but 
they  do  so  only  when  exercised  as  virtues,  and  not  for  the  mere 
pleasures  or  benefits  that  accompany  them.  When  attended 
to  merely  for  the  sake  of  the  consequences,  it  will  be  found  that 
the  consequences  do  not  follow.  In  like  manner,  we  find  that 
spiritual  affections  produce  such  a  hallowed  influence  on  the 
soul  only  when  performed  as  duties  which  we  owe  to  God.  We 
must  therefore  seek  for  some  deeper  foundation  on  which  to 
build  the  duty  of  prayer. 

Prayer  has  a  quintuple  foundation  in  natural  religion.  Three 
of  the  grounds  are  merely  subsidiary  to  the  others,  which  furnish 
the  proper  basis. 

First,  The  deepest  and  highest  feelings  of  our  nature  prompt 
to  prayer.  Admiration  of  God's  works,  gratitude  for  favours,  a 
consciousness  of  guilt,  and  a  sense  of  helplessness,  all  find  their 
becoming  expression  in  the  soul  pouring  itself  out  to  God.  This 
is  the  result  to  which  they  spontaneously  lead,  except  in  so  far 
as  they  are  restrained,  by  a  speculative  unbelief,  or  by  cherished 
sins.  The  very  atheist  in  these  days  is  compelled  to  become 
pantheist,  that  he  may  find  outlet  to  these  feelings,  in  com- 
munion with  an  invisible  power.  Rousseau  talks  of  a  "  bewilder- 
ing ecstasy,  to  which  my  mind  abandoned  itself  without  control, 
and  which,  in  the  excitement  of  my  transports,  made  me  some- 
times exclaim,  'Oh,  great  being!  oh,  great  being!'  without 
being  able  to  say  or  think  more." 

To  take  only  one  of  these  feelings — the  sense  of  weakness — 
"  There  is,"  says  Guizot,  "  a  sentiment  to  be  found  under  diverse 
forms  among  all  men,  the  sentiment  of  the  need  of  some  external 
succour,  of  a  support  to  the  human  will,  of  a  force  which  may 
lend  its  force  and  strength  to  our  necessity.  The  man  searches 
all  around  for  this  support,  and  for  this  force  to  aid  him  ;  he 
requires  them  as  the  encouragement  of  friendship,  as  counsel  to 
his  wisdom,  as  an  example  to  copy,  to  approve  of  what  he  likes, 
and  from  a  dread  of  blame.  There  is  not  a  person  who  cannot 
produce  in  his  own  case  a  thousand  proofs  of  this  movement  of 
a  soul  seeking  out  of  itself  an  aid  to  its  own  freedom,  which  it 
feels  to  be  at  once  real  and  insufficient.  And  as  the  visible 
world  and  human  society  do  not  respond  always  to  his  wishes, 
as  they  are  infected  with  the  same  insufficiency  which  he  finds 


218  METHOD  OF  ANSWERING  PRAYER 


in  himself,  the  mind  goes  beyond  the  visible  world,  am-  ao^ 
human  relations,  for  the  support  which  it  needs  ;  the  religious 
sentiment  develops  itself,  and  man  addresses  himself  to  God, 
and  calls  him  to  his  succour.  Prayer  is  the  most  elevated, 
though  it  is  not  the  only  form,  under  which  there  is  manifested 
this  universal  sentiment  of  the  feebleness  of  human  will,  this 
recourse  to  an  exterior  force  to  which  it  may  unite."* 

Secondly,  Man's  state  of  dependence  renders  prayer  a  becom- 
ing exercise.  The  lesson  taught  by  his  inward  feeling  is  also 
the  lesson  taught  by  his  relation  to  the  external  world.  God  has 
so  constituted  his  providence,  that  man  is  at  all  times  dependent 
on  his  Maker  for  the  comforts  and  the  very  necessaries  of  life. 
God  could,  no  doubt,  have  placed  mankind  in  a  different  consti- 
tution of  things,  where  praise  and  not  prayer  would  have  been 
the  befitting  exercise.  Situated  as  he  is,  he  is  constrained  to 
feel  a  sense  of  dependence ;  and  of  this  feeling,  prayer  is  the 
suitable  expression. 

But  we  fear  that  neither  of  these  two  considerations,  operating 
singly,  will  be  sufficient  to  produce  steady  and  persevering 
prayer.  For  if  there  are  certain  impulses  of  nature  which  would 
draw  us  in  ODe  way,  there  are  other  impulses  which  would  draw 
us  in  an  opposite  direction  ;  there  is  pride,  holding  us  back 
when  we  would  lie  low  at  the  footstool  of  God's  throne  ;  there 
is  the  opposition  of  the  heart  to  what  is  spiritual,  repelling  us 
when  we  would  come  to  the  light.  Hence  we  find,  that  in  no 
pagan  religion,  nor  in  nature's  religion  under  any  of  its  forms, 
is  there  any  sustained  or  regular  prayer  in  the  service  paid  to 
the  gods.  Gifts  may  be  offered  to  express  gratitude,  ejacula- 
tions are  emitted  to  give  utterance  to  a  sense  of  want,  depend- 
ence, and  guilt ;  but  there  is  no  prayer  of  a  continued,  of  an 
elevated,  or  elevating  description. 

Under  the  influence  of  distracting  natural  feeling,  the  follow- 
ing is  an  experience  to  which  the  hearts  of  many  will  respond,, 
Early  trained  to  it  under  the  domestic  roof,  the  person  regularly 
engaged  in  prayer,  during  childhood  and  opening  manhood. 
But  as  he  became  introduced  to  general  society,  and  began  to 
feel  his  independence  of  the  guardians  of  his  youth,  he  was 
tempted  to  look  upon  the  father's  commands,  in  this  respect,  as 
proceeding  from  sourness  and  sternness ;  and  the  mother's  ad- 
*  Civilisation  en  France,  cinquifcme  Lecon. 


AND  FURTHERING  SPIRITUAL  ENDS.  219 

vice,  as  originating  in  an  amiable  weakness  and  timidity.  He 
is  now  careless  in  the  performance  of  acts  which  in  time  past 
had  been  punctually  attended  to.  How  short,  how  hurried,  how 
cold,  are  the  prayers  which  he  now  utters  !  Then  there  come  to 
be  mornings  on  which  he  is  snatched  away  to  some  very  im- 
portant or  enticing  work,  without  engaging  in  his  customary 
devotions.  There  are  evenings,  too,  following  days  of  mad 
excitement  or  sinful  pleasure,  in  which  he  feels  utterly  indis- 
posed to  go  into  the  presence  of  God,  and  to  be  left  alone  with 
him.  He  feels  that  there  is  an  utter  incongruity  between  the 
ball-room  or  the  theatre  which  he  has  just  left,  and  the  throne 
of  grace  to  which  he  should  now  go.  What  can  he  say  to  God 
when  he  would  pray  to  him  ?  Confess  his  sins  ?  No  ;  he  does 
not  at  present  feel  the  act  to  be  sinful.  Thank  God  for  giving 
him  access  to  such  follies  ?  He  has  his  doubts  whether  God 
approves  of  all  that  has  been  done.  But  he  may  ask  God's 
blessing  ?  No ;  he  is  scarcely  disposed  to  acknowledge  that  he 
needs  a  blessing,  or  he  doubts  whether  the  blessing  would  be 
given.  The  practical  conclusion  to  which  he  comes  is,  that  it 
may  be  as  consistent  in  him  to  betake  himself  to  sleep  without 
offering  to  God  what  he  feels  would  only  be  a  mockery.  What 
is  he  to  do  the  following  morning  ?  It  is  a  critical  time.  Con- 
fess his  error  ?  No  ;  with  the  gay  scene  floating  before  his  fancy, 
and  with  the  taste  and  relish  of  it  yet  upon  his  palate,  he  is  not 
prepared  to  acknowledge  his  folly.  Morning  and  evening  now 
go  and  return,  and  bring  new  gifts  from  God,  and  new  manifes- 
tations of  his  goodness ;  but  no  acknowledgment  of  the  Divine 
bounty  on  the  part  of  him  who  is  yet  ever  receiving  it.  No 
doubt,  there  are  times  when  he  is  prompted  to  prayer  by  power- 
ful feelings,  called  up  by  outward  trials  or  inward  convictions. 
But  ever  when  the  storms  of  human  life  would  drive  him  to  the 
shore,  there  is  a  tide  beating  him  back.  His  course  continues 
to  be  a  very  vacillating  one — now  seeming  to  approach  to  God, 
and  anon  driven  farther  from  him,  till  he  obtains  from  books  or 
from  lectures  a  smattering  of  half  understood  science.  He  now 
learns  that  all  things  are  governed  by  laws  regular  and  fixed, 
over  which  the  breath  of  prayer  can  exert  as  little  influence,  as 
they  move  on  in  their  allotted  course,  as  the  passing  breeze  of 
the  earth  over  the  sun  in  his  circuit.  False  philosophy  has  now 
come  to  the  aid  of  guilty  feelings,  and  congeals  their  cold  waters 


220  METHOD  OF  ANSWERING  PRAYER, 


» 


into  an  icicle  lying  at  his  very  heart,  cooling  all  his  ardour,  and 
damping  all  his  enthusiasm.  He  looks  back  at  times,  no  doubt, 
to  the  simple  faith  of  his  childhood  with  a  sigh ;  but  it  is  as  tc 
a  pleasing  dream  or  illusion,  from  which  he  has  been  awakened, 
and  into  which,  the  spell  being  broken,  he  can  never  again  fall. 

We  must,  therefore,  seek  for  a  firmer  basis  on  which  to  rest 
the  duty  of  prayer. 

Thirdly,  Prayer  is  a  duty  which  we  owe  to  God.  It  is  due 
on  the  part  of  the  intelligent  creature  that  he  should  thus  exalt 
the  great  Creator.  Common  gratitude  should  prompt  every 
thankful  mind  to  express  its  sense  of  the  Divine  goodness. 
Every  reproach  of  conscience  should  bring  us  down  upon  our 
knees  before  that  God  whose  law  we  have  broken.  Prayer, 
"  uttered  or  unexpressed,"  is  the  form  which  this  duty  of  obeis- 
ance, which  we  hold  to  be  a  moral  duty,  should  assume.  It  is 
man,  in  his  own  way,  and  according  to  his  nature,  addressing 
himself  to  God,  who,  according  to  his  nature,  must  hear  and 
listen  to  the  petitions  of  his  creatures.  There  may  be  prayer 
where  there  are  no  words  employed,  and  the  heart  may  move 
when  the  lips  do  not  move.  Still,  it  is  according  to  the  consti- 
tution of  man  that  out  of  the  abundance  of  the  heart  the  mouth 
will  speak ;  and  words,  while  forming  no  essential  part  of  the 
prayer,  will  yet  essentially  aid  it,  by  keeping  the  mind  from 
falling  into  blankness  and  vacuity,  by  instigating  and  guiding 
it  in  a  certain  train — in  short,  they  furnish  cords  to  bind  the 
sacrifice  to  the  altar,  they  supply  a  censer  in  which  the  delicate 
incense  of  our  feelings  may  be  presented  before  the  Lord. 

Fourthly,  God  has  so  arranged  his  providence  that  he  provides 
an  answer  to  prayer.  It  is  of  the  utmost  moment  to  establish 
this  truth,  and  to  show  that  there  is  a  means  by  which  God  can 
answer  prayer  in  a  manner  worthy  of  his  own  character,  and 
suited  to  ours. 

Dr.  Chalmers  has  treated  this  subject  with  his  usual  enlarge- 
ment of  mind.  He  supposes  that  prayer  may  be  answered  in 
one  or  other  of  two  ways,  in  perfect  accordance  with  the  ordinary 
procedure  of  God.  He  supposes  that  prayer  and  its  answer  may 
be  connected  together,  as  cause  and  effect,  that  they  may  form 
a  sequence  of  a  very  subtle  kind,  more  subtle  than  any  of  the 
sequences  of  the  most  latent  physical  substances,  and  not  there- 
fore observable,  except  by  those  who  have  that  nice  spiritual 


AND  FURTHERING  SPIRITUAL  ENDS.  221 

discernment  which  is  communicated  fey  faith.  Or,  he  supposes, 
that  God  may  interpose  among  the  physical  agents  beyond  that 
limit  to  which  human  sagacity  can  trace  the  operation  of  law. 
He  calls  on  us  to  observe  how,  in  all  human  affairs,  we  can  trace 
the  actual  agency  of  law  but  a  very  little  way  back.  Natural 
powers,  as  we  follow  them,  become  so  complicated  in  their 
operation,  that  God  might  easily  interfere  with  them,  and 
change  their  operation  without  the  possibility  of  his  presence 
being  detected.  He  might,  for  instance,  change  the  laws  which 
regulate  the  weather,  and  send  a  storm  or  calm  at  any  given 
place  or  time  ;  or  he  might  modify  the  laws  by  which  the  living 
functions  of  the  human  body  are  regulated,  and  send  health  or 
disease,  and  no  man  be  able  to  say  whether  there  has  been  an 
interposition  or  not.* 

We  are  unwilling  to  cast  a  shade  of  doubt  upon  these  beauti- 
ful views.  It  does  seem,  however,  as  if  the  first  were  scarcely 
consistent  with  the  correct  idea  of  prayer.  To  suppose  that 
there  is  a  causal  connexion,  does  not  leave  that  discretion  to  the 
Divine  Being  in  answering  prayer  which  it  is  most  needful  that 
he  should  exercise.  Nor  does  the  analogy  of  nature  furnish  us 
with  a  single  instance  of  a  mental  feeling  causally  influencing 
an  object  or  event  with  which  it  has  no  physical  connexion.  It 
may  be  safely  said  of  the  second  view,  that  it  never  can  be 
directly  disproved.  It  takes  us  into  a  region  in  which,  if  proof 
cannot  easily  be  discovered,  it  is  certain  that  disproof  cannot  be 
found.  Both  theories  may  be  fairly  held  as  serving  the  purpose 
intended  by  their  author,  and  as  showing  that  it  is  possible  for 
God  to  answer  prayer.  It  is  a  favourite  maxim  with  Chalmers, 
and  one  of  importance,  that  an  hypothesis  nay  be  fitted,  when 
it  serves  no  other  purpose,  to  take  the  edge  off  a  plausible 
argument.  The  objector,  in  this  case,  insists  (as  the  major 
proposition  in  the  syllogism)  that  God  cannot  answer  prayer  in 
consistency  with  his  usual  procedure ;  and  Chalmers  deprives 
this  general  proposition,  and  therefore  the  conclusion,  of  all 
force,  by  showing  that  there  are  at  least  two  conceivable  ways 
by  which  God  can  grant  the  requests  of  his  creatures,  in  perfect 
accordance  with  the  principles  of  his  providence. 

But  is  it  necessary  to  resort  to  either  of  these  ingenious 
theories  ?  Is  there  not  a  more  obvious  means  by  which.  God 

*  Chalmers'  Natural  Theology,  B.  v.  c.  iii. 


222  METHOD  OF  ANSWERING  PRAYER, 

can  answer  the  prayer  of  faith  ?  It  is  not  necessary  to  suppose 
that  prayer  and  its  answer  form  a  separate  law  of  nature,  for 
the  answer  may  come  as  the  result  of  other  laws  arranged  for 
this  very  purpose.  Nor  is  it  needful  to  suppose  that  God  inter- 
poses to  change  his  own  laws.  The  analogy  of  his  method  of 
operation  in  other  matters  would  rather  incline  us  to  believe 
that  he  has  so  arranged  these  laws,  that  by  their  agency  he  may 
answer  prayer  without  at  all  interfering  with  them.  We  have 
been  endeavouring  to  develop  the  plan  of  providence  by  which 
he  can  secure  this  end.  His  agents  were  at  first  ordained  and 
marshalled  by  him  for  the  accomplishment  of  all  the  wise  de- 
signs of  his  government ;  and  among  other  ends,  they  may  bring 
the  blessings  for  which  faith  is  expected  to  supplicate.  He  sends 
an  answer  to  prayer  in  precisely  the  same  way  as  he  compasses 
all  his  other  moral  designs,  as  he  conveys  blessings  and  inflicts 
judgments.  He  does  not  require  to  interfere  with  his  own  ar- 
rangements, for  there  is  an  answer  provided  in  the  arrangement 
made  by  him  from  all  eternity.  How  is  it  that  God  sends  us 
the  bounties  of  his  providence  ? — how  is  it  that  he  supplies  the 
many  wants  of  his  creatures  ? — how  is  it  that  he  encourages 
industry  ? — how  is  it  that  he  arrests  the  plots  of  wickedness  ? — 
how  is  it  that  he  punishes  in  this  life  notorious  offenders  against 
his  law  ?  The  answer  is,  by  the  skilful  pre-arrangements  of  his 
providence,  whereby  the  needful  events  fall  out  at  the  very  time 
and  in  the  way  required.  When  the  question  is  asked,  How 
does  God  answer  prayer  ?  we  give  the  very  same  reply — it  is  by 
a  pre-ordained  appointment,  when  God  settled  the  constitution 
of  the  world,  and  set  all  its  parts  in  order. 

There  is  nothing  here  opposed  to  the  principles  of  the  Divine 
government,  but  everything  in  consonance  with  them.  We 
have,  in  a  previous  section,  shown  how  events  may  be  joined  by 
a  natural  tie,  by  a  moral  tie,  or  a  religious  tie.  In  regard  to  the 
natural  tie,  we  have  shewn  that  in  nature  there  are  beautiful 
relations  in  the  works  of  God,  not  originating  in  any  causal 
connexion.  Again,  we  have  hinted  that  we  may  expect  God 
to  support  his  moral  law  by  physical  agencies.  The  illustration 
of  this  subject  will  yet  pass  under  our  notice.  Meanwhile,  we 
would  have  it  observed,  that  prayer  and  its  answer  may  be  held 
as  connected  by  a  religious  tie.  Prayer,  we  have  seen,  is  a  duty 
which  man,  in  his  present  state,  owes  to  his  Creator.     Man  is  a 


AND  FURTHERING  SPIRITUAL  ENDS.  223 

religious  as  well  as  a  moral  being.  There  are  important  rela- 
tions between  man  and  his  Maker,  originating,  no  doubt,  in 
morality  in  its  widest  sense,  but  rising  far  above  a  mere  com- 
mon-place virtue.  Now,  just  as  God  sustains  his  moral  law  by 
the  arrangements  of  his  physical  providence,  so  we  may  expect 
him  also  to  support  his  spiritual  government  by  the  same  means. 
We  must  ever  hold  the  physical  as  the  inferior,  to  be  subordi- 
nated to  the  moral  and  the  spiritual,  and  we  expect  it  to  be 
employed  to  uphold  these  as  the  end.  Just  as  he  has  arranged 
his  providence,  as  all  thinking  minds  acknowledge,  to  encourage 
virtue  and  discountenance  vice,  we  anticipate  that,  by  the  same 
agency,  he  may  also  provide  an  answer  to  prayer.  And  it  is  a 
fact,  that  all  who  have  continued  steadfast  in  the  prayer  of  faith 
have  declared,  as  the  result  of  their  experience,  that  God  has 
been  faithful,  and  has  iot  failed  to  show  that  he  has  been  at- 
tending to  their  supphcations. 

We  reckon  it  a  presumption  in  favour  of  the  view  now  ex- 
pounded, that  it  leaves  the  laws  of  nature  undisturbed,  not  only 
within,  but  beyond  the  limit  at  which  human  observation  ceases. 
Geology  and  astronomy  conspire  to  inform  us  that  there  is  a 
uniformity  of  law  throughout  the  widest  regions  of  time  and 
space.  It  seems  as  if,  throughout  all  knowable  time  and  space, 
there  were  a  government  by  general  laws,  which  others  as  well 
as  the  human  race  may  observe  and  act  upon.  The  parts  of 
the  great  Cosmos  are  so  connected  that  irremediable  evil  might 
follow  the  interference  with  law,  even  though  that  interference 
should  be  beyond  the  limit  of  human  observation.  We  cannot 
conceive  it  to  be  for  the  mere  good  of  man,  that  general  law  has 
reigned  throughout  the  long  eras  of  the  history  of  the  earth 
before  man  peopled  it,  or  that  it  reigns  in  the  distant  regions  of 
space,  of  which  he  can  take  but  a  bare  cognizance.  Other  ends 
must  be  served  by  this  universality  of  law ;  and  we  are  not 
willing  to  suppose  that  it  ceases  at  the  point  at  which  man's 
eye  must  cease  to  follow  it.  Every  new  discovery  in  science 
widens  the  dominions  of  law,  and  we  are  not  convinced  that  the 
interests  of  religion  require  us  to  limit  them.  Altogether,  when 
there  is  a  way  by  which  God  can  answer  prayer  without  disturb- 
ing his  own  laws,  it  is  safest  to  conclude  that  this  is  the  actual 
method  employed 

No  objection  can  be  brought  against  this  view,  from   the 


224  METHOD  OF  ANSWERING  PRAYER 


Divine  immutability  or  the  doctrine  of  predestination,  which 
will  not  apply  so  extensively  as  to  reduce  it  to  an  absurdity, 
(Beductio  ad  absurdum.)  Since  God  is  unchangeable,  and  has 
arranged  everything  beforehand,  why  need  I  pray  at  all  ?  The 
reply  is — that  the  answer  to  prayer  proceeds  on  the  foreseen 
circumstance  that  the  prayer  will  be  offered — that  if  the  man 
refuses  to  pray,  he  shall  assuredly  find  it  fixed  that  no  answer 
is  given.  Should  petulance  insist  on  a  farther  repty,  we  think 
it  enough  to  show  that  this  is  a  style  of  objection  which  would 
apply  to  every  species  of  human  activity.  "Why  need  I  be  dili- 
gent, if  it  is  arranged  whether  or  no  I  shall  get  the  object  which 
I  expect  to  gain  by  industry  ?  is  the  next  form  which  the  cavil 
may  assume.  If  the  objector  is  an  ambitious  man,  we  ask,  why 
pursue  so  eagerly  that  expected  honour,  when  he  knows  that  it 
has  been  ordained,  from  all  eternity,  whether  he  shall  secure  it 
or  no  ?  If  he  is  a  man  of  pleasure,  we  ask,  why  such  anxiety  to 
procure  never-ceasing  mirth  and  amusement,  when  he  knows 
that  it  is  pre-determined  what  amount  of  enjoyment  he  is  to 
receive  in  this  life  ?  Ah  !  it  turns  out  that  the  objection,  which 
presses  with  no  peculiar  force  upon  the  supposed  Divine  arrange- 
ments in  regard  to  prayer,  is  a  mere  pretext  to  excuse  the  un- 
willingness of  the  person  who  urges  it,  for  he  discovers  it  only 
in  those  cases  in  which  he  is  indisposed  to  act. 

There  appears  to  us  to  be  a  beautiful  congruity  in  this  method 
of  answering  prayer.  Prayer  is  effectually  answered,  and  yet 
there  is  no  encouragement  given,  nor  room  allowed,  to  any  pos- 
sible evils,  such  as  pride  and  self-confidence,  or  easy  self-com- 
placency and  inactivity.  If  prayer  and  its  answer  had  been 
connected  as  cause  and  effect,  there  might  have  been  a  risk,  that 
when  the  person  had  prayed  he  would  rashly  conclude  that 
exertion  might  now  cease.  But  in  the  system  now  developed, 
while  there  is  assuredly  a  connexion  between  the  entreaty  and 
the  blessing,  it  is  not  a  connexion  in  the  mechanical  laws  ot 
nature,  but  in  the  counsels  of  God  ;  and  the  man  who  has 
prayed,  as  he  looks  for  the  answer,  feels  that  he  must  fall  in 
with  the  Divine  procedure.  There  is  a  wdiolesome  discipline 
exercised  by  the  very  uncertainty  (humanly  speaking)  of  the 
means  which  God  employs  for  sending  the  answer,  and  the 
person  who  has  prayed  is  kept  humble  and  dependent,  in  the 
exercise  of  a  spirit  of  waiting  and  watchfulness.     He  feels  that 


AND  FURTHERING  SPIRITUAL  ENDS.  225 

he  dare  be  proud  and  presumptuous  only  at  the  risk  of  defeating 
all  the  purposes  served  by  his  acts  of  devotion.  He  sees  that, 
on  ceasing  to  be  active,  God  may  probably  punish  him  for  his 
folly  by  laying  an  arrest  on  the  expected  answer  to  his  petitions. 

It  is  another  congruity  of  this  method  of  providence,  that  God 
can  so  join  petition  with  its  answer,  that,  while  the  connexion  is 
not  observable  by  his  neighbours,  it  may  be  traced  by  the  man 
himself.  There  is  an  obvious  propriety  in  such  a  provision  being 
made,  in  so  delicate  a  matter  as  the  soul's  communing  with  its 
Maker.  We  may  observe  the  same  principles  in  other  dealings 
of  God.  In  providential  events,  as,  for  instance,  in  afflictive 
dispensations,  the  individual  can  see  many  adaptations  to  him- 
self which  are  hid  from  the  eyes  of  others.  There  is  a  special 
propriety,  as  it  appears  to  us,  in  the  answer  to  prayer  being 
conveyed  in  this  way,  as  a  token  to  the  man  himself,  but  which 
he  is  not  ostentatiously  to  display  before  the  world,  and  thereby 
proclaim  himself  a  favourite  of  heaven.  By  the  nicely  fitted 
machinery  of  his  providence,  God  can  connect  the  prayer  and  its 
answer  by  threads  which  are  all  but  invisible  to  others,  but  which 
are  clearly  discerned  by  the  man  himself. 

The  same  general  rules  that  guide  us  in  looking  for  an  answer 
to  prayer,  also  guide  us  in  determining  the  exceptions.  It  is 
not  our  prayer  that  produces  the  blessing  by  its  inherent  power, 
but  it  comes  by  the  special  appointment  of  God,  and  so  we  look 
for  an  answer  only  when  the  request  is  agreeable  to  the  will  ot 
heaven.  We  always  leave  a  discretion  in  the  hands  of  God ; 
and  every  man  who  knows  himself,  and  the  perversity  of  his 
desires,  will  rejoice  that  there  is  power  left  with  God,  and  that 
he  does  not  promise  to  grant  all  our  requests.  We  see,  too, 
how  there  is  a  discretion  left  with  God,  not  only  as  to  whether 
he  will  send  the  blessing,  but  as  to  the  time,  the  maimer,  and 
means,  in  respect  of  all  which  the  soul  is  not  to  dictate  to  Deity, 
but  patiently  to  wait  upon  his  pleasure.  Nor  should  it  be  for- 
gotten that  the  tie  that  connects  the  prayer  and  its  answer  is  a 
religious  lie ;  and  we  are  thus  reminded,  that  it  is  only  when 
the  prayer  is  spiritual  that  it  can  be  expected  to  bring  with  it 
the  anticipated  blessings. 

Nor  should  it  be  overlooked  that,  by  these  skilful  arrange- 
ments, God  can  not  only  answer  prayer,  but  answer  it  with  such 
an  opportuneness  of  time,  place,  and  mode,  that  when  the  blessing 

p 


226  METHOD  OF  ANSWERING  PRATER. 

comes,  it  is  as  if  it  had  dropped  immediately  from  heaven.  God 
delays  the  answer  that  it  may  be  the  more  beneficent  when  it 
comes.  The  stream  is  made  to  turn  and  wind,  that  it  may  re- 
ceive contributions  from  every  valley  which  it  passes,  and  all  to 
flow  more  largely  into  the  bosom  at  last.  God's  plans  ripen 
slowly,  that  the  fruit  may  be  the  richer  and  mellower.  Hence 
it  is  that  the  royal  munificence  of  his  bounty  knows  no  limits  at 
last.  "  He  is  able  to  do  exceeding  abundantly  above  all  that 
we  ask  or  think." 

Fifthly,  Prayer  has  a  most  beneficent  reflex  influence  upon 
the  character.  We  are  unwilling  that  the  obligation  of  prayer 
should  be  made  to  rest  primarily  on  such  a  basis.  But,  an  in- 
dependent basis  being  secured  otherwise,  it  is  indeed  most  de- 
lightful to  trace  the  blessed  influence  which  prayer  produces 
upon  the  character.  We  must  first  show  how  it  shines  in  its 
own  light,  and  then  it  is  pleasant  to  observe  how  its  light  is 
reflected  from  off  the  heart  and  temper,  which  it  beautifies  and 
adorns.  Prayer,  like  virtue,  should  not  be  courted  for  its  mere 
indirect  consequences ;  but,  when  sought  for  its  own  sake,  it 
brings  with  it  a  thousand  other  blessings. 

Combine  these  five  considerations,  the  two  presumptions  in 
the  feeling  and  state  of  man,  the  two  direct  proofs  in  the  duty 
of  prayer,  and  the  appointed  connexion  with  its  answer,  and  the 
accessory  in  the  results  that  follow,  and  we  have  a  foundation 
on  which  prayer  may  rest,  and  from  which  it  can  never  be 
dislodged. 

These  observations  on  the  subject  of  prayer  hold  true  in 
regard  to  all  other  spiritual  ends  contemplated  by  God.  Whether 
the  mere  observer  of  physical  nature  notices  it  or  no,  we  doubt 
not  but  the  "  earth  is  meant  to  help  the  woman,"  that  the  phy- 
sical is  used  to  promote  the  spiritual,  which  is  to  be  the  last 
and  greatest  of  all  the  historical  developments  evolved  by  God 
in  our  world.  But  the  discussion  of  this  subject  would  conduct 
us  into  a  far  higher  field  of  inquiry  than  the  common  provi- 
dence of  God ;  and  we  wish  it  to  be  understood  that  in  these 
sections  we  are  treating  of  the  ordinary  dealings  of  God  in  the 
world,  and  not  of  the  supernatural  government  of  his  Church. 


RELATION  OF  PHYSICAL  TO  MORAL  PROVIDENCE.  227 


CHAPTER  III. 


RELATION  OF  THE  PROVIDENCE  OF  GOD  TO  THE  CHARACTER 

OF  MAN. 

6ECT.  I. — GENERAL  REMARKS  ON  THE  RELATION  OF  THE  PHYSICAL 
TO  THE  MORAL  PROVIDENCE  OF  GOD. 

Two  truths,  regarding  man's  moral  nature,  stand  out  as  among 
the  most  certain  of  all  that  are  revealed  by  the  consciousness — 
the  one,  that  there  is  an  essential  distinction  between  good  and 
evil ;  and  the  other,  that  the  moral  is  higher  in  its  very  nature 
than  the  physical.  Place  before  the  mind  two  actions — the  one 
morally  good,  and  the  other  morally  evil ;  the  one,  let  us  sup- 
pose, a  truthful  declaration,  uttered  by  a  person  tempted  to 
equivocate  ;  and  the  other,  a  falsehood  deliberately  uttered  :  the 
mind,  in  judging  of  them,  at  once  and  authoritatively  proclaims 
that  there  is  a  difference.  Again,  place  before  the  mind  a  moral 
good  and  a  physical  good — say,  the  furtherance  of  a  nation's 
virtue  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  production  of  some  beautiful 
piece  of  art  on  the  other,  and  the  mind  is  prepared  to  decide 
that  the  former  is  immeasurably  the  higher. 

Assuming,  then,  that  there  is  a  moral  good,  and  that  the 
moral  is  higher  than  the  physical,  let  us  now  look  at  the  con- 
nexion between  them.  That  there  is  such  a  connexion,  we  hold 
to  be  one  of  the  most  firmly  established  of  the  truths  which  re- 
late to  the  government  of  God.  The  God  who  hath  established 
both  hath  established  a  relation  between  them. 

There  is  nothing  unreasonable  or  improbable  in  the  idea,  that 
God  should  connect  one  part  of  his  government  with  another. 
Every  person  acknowledges  that  the  physical  is  used  to  promote 
the  sentient  and  the  intellectual  in  man's  nature — that  is,  the 
external  world  is  so  arranged  as  to  minister  to  man's  happiness 


228  RELATION  OF  PHYSICAL  TO  MORAL  PROVIDENCE. 

and  comfort,  and  to  help  on  his  growth  in  knowledge  and  intel- 
ligence. We  have  been  at  pains  to  point  out  what  we  consider 
as  among  the  most  striking  instances  of  this  latter  kind  of 
adaptation.  We  have  also  shown  that  there  may  be  fine  threads 
connecting  the  physical  with  the  spiritual.  But  there  is  a  no 
less  curious,  though  perhaps,  in  some  respects,  a  more  complex 
relation,  between  the  physical  and  the  moral — the  physical,  as 
the  lesser,  being  always  regarded  as  subordinated  to  the  moral, 
as  infinitely  the  greater.  The  physical  events  of  providence 
have  most  assuredly  a  bearing  upon  the  character  of  man. 

Can  we  be  wrong  in  supposing  that,  if  man  had  been  a  being 
spotlessly  pure,  God  would  have  governed  him  by  a  moral  law, 
producing  the  same  harmony  throughout  the  world  of  mind  as 
physical  law  does  in  the  world  of  matter  ?  It  is  conceivable 
that,  in  such  a  world,  the  whole  marshalling  of  the  Divine  plans 
would  have  been  clear  and  orderly,  as  in  the  arrangements  of  a 
well-regulated  family,  all  the  members  of  which  love  one  another, 
and  love  their  head.  The  physical  would  have  been  so  ordered 
as  to  serve  the  same  purposes  with  those  kind  rewards  and 
encouragements  which  parents  are  ever  giving  to  their  obedient 
children. 

But  man,  it  is  evident,  is  not  habitually  guided  by  any  such 
moral  principle.  Take  any  rule,  the  loosest  and  most  earthly, 
purporting  to  be  moral  law,  and  examine  him  by  it,  and  we 
are  constrained  to  acknowledge  that  he  is  not  obeying  it.  His 
character  being  of  this  description,  it  is  to  be  expected  that 
the  government  of  the  world  should  be  suited  to  it.  It  is  ques- 
tionable whether  the  mode  of  government  best  fitted  for  holy 
beings  is  at  all  adapted  to  those  who  bave  broken  loose  from  the 
restraints  of  moral  principle.  When  a  father  finds  his  children 
rebelling  against  him,  and  setting  his  authority  at  defiance,  he 
must  regulate  his  family  on  totally  different  principles  from 
those  adopted  when  the  bonds  that  connected  the  members  were 
confidence  and  love.  G-od  cannot  in  any  case  abandon  the  go- 
vernment of  any  portion  of  his  own  universe,  and  when  he  cannot 
rule  by  moral  laws,  he  must  needs  curb  by  physical  restraint. 

But  in  pursuing  this  course  of  reflection,  we  are  in  danger, 
it  must  l>e  acknowledged,  of  outrunning  the  premises  as  yet 
established.  We  find  ourselves  looking  into  the  purpose  sup- 
posed to  be  served  by  them,  before  determining  the  facts  them- 


AIDS  TO  VIRTUE,  AND  RESTRAINTS  UPON  VICE.  229 

selves.  In  this  chapter  we  establish  one  of  the  facts :  we  show, 
that  God's  providence  is  intimately  connected  with  the  moral 
character  of  man,  and,  in  particular,  that  there  are  restraints 
laid  upon  human  sinfulness  and  folly  by  skilful  arrangements 
meeting  and  conspiring  for  this  purpose.  It  must  be  left  to  a 
subsequent  part  of  this  Treatise  to  establish  another  fact,  furnish- 
ing the  other  premise — namely,  that  man's  character  is  sinful. 
From  the  two  premises,  when  fully  established,  we  arrive  at  a 
discovery  of  the  means  adopted  by  God  to  govern  a  fallen  world 
in  which  the  moral  law  has  lost  its  power,  and  perceive  how  he 
can  bind  by  physical  chains  those  who  have  broken  loose  from 
the  gentler  ties  of  affection  and  moral  obligation.  So  far  as  we 
seem  to  stretch  the  argument  beyond  this  point  in  this  chapter, 
it  is  to  be  understood  as  merely  presumptive.  It  is  not  con- 
clusive till  it  is  furnished  with  the  counterpart  fact,  to  be  dis- 
covered by  that  inquiry  into  man's  moral  principles  which  we 
purpose  to  undertake  in  the  Book  which  follows. 

SECT.  II. — AIDS  TO  VIRTUE,  AND  RESTRAINTS  UPON  VICE. 

There  is  surely  somewhere  within  the  dominions  of  God  a 
world  in  which  there  is  no  disorder  and  no  violence,  and  in 
which  the  moral  law,  the  royal  law  of  love,  is  sufficient  to  bind 
the  intelligent  creatures  to  God,  and  to  one  another.  Account 
for  it  as  we  may,  it  is  evident  at  the  first  glance  that  our  lot  is 
not  cast  in  such  a  world.  We  find  ourselves,  instead,  in  a  state 
of  things  in  which  there  are  much  confusion  and  misery  pro- 
duced by  human  wickedness — this  province,  rebellious  though  it 
seem,  being  all  the  while  under  the  discipline  of  God. 

Possibly,  the  problem  which  had  to  be  solved  in  the  counsels 
of  heaven  was — Given,  a  world  in  which  the  love  of  holiness  and 
the  hatred  of  sin  do  not  exist,  or  are  at  all  events  very  weak — to 
determine  a  method  of  governing  it,  so  that  it  may  not  run  into 
inextricable  confusion,  and  destroy  itself  by  its  own  madness 
and  violence.     Are  we  living  in  such  a  constitution  of  things  ? 

But  we  are  not  at  present  inquiring  into  the  nature  or  extent 
of  man's  love  of  virtue  or  vice :  this  is  a  topic  which  falls  to  be 
considered  in  a  subsequent  part  of  this  Treatise.  We  may,  how- 
ever, at  this  stage  of  our  inquiries,  take  a  view  of  the  numerous 
means  which  God  employs  for  the  promotion  of  virtuous,  and 


230  AIDS  TO  VIRTUE,  AND 

the  restraining  of  vicious  conduct,  apart  from  any  truly  virtuous 
principle  that  may  lodge  in  the  human  breast. 

I.  There  are  a  great  many  direct  encouragements  given  to 
virtuous,  and  restraints  laid  upon  immoral  conduct.  There  is  the 
pleasant  sentient  feeling  which  the  benevolent  affections  diffuse, 
by  means  of  a  nicely  adjusted  nervous  system,  through  the  bodily 
frame  ;  and  again,  there  are  the  nervous  irritation  and  weakness 
produced  by  the  cherishing  of  the  malignant  feelings  or  by  sinful 
excess.  Every  one  knows  that  the  cultivation  of  virtuous  affec- 
tions is  favourable  to  the  health ;  that  worldly  cares  and  anxieties 
carried  to  excess,  that  envy,  jealousy,  and  revenge,  that  the 
criminal  indulgence  of  animal  lusts,  all  injure  and  waste  the 
body.  God  thus  indicates,  by  laws  more  easily  understood  than 
those  of  the  best  ordered  kingdoms,  that  he  approves  of  moral 
conduct,  and  disapproves  of  the  opposite. 

II.  Providence  is  so  arranged,  that  in  the  natural  course  of 
events,  virtuous  action  leads  to  a  multitude  of  results  which  are 
beneficial  to  the  individual.  The  upright  man  is  trusted,  and 
has  a  thousand  means  of  advancing  his  interests  denied  to  the 
cunning  and  deceitful.  The  friendly  man  receives  friendship, 
which  the  selfish  man  can  never  obtain,  or  enjoy  though  it  were 
granted  to  him.  It  needs  no  deep  reflection  to  discover,  that 
honesty  is  the  best  policy,  that  benevolence  is  its  own  reward ; 
and  multitudes  act  upon  such  prudential  considerations,  when 
higher  principles  might  fail  to  maintain  any  powerful  influence 
over  them.  Had  God  constituted  his  government  on  a  different 
principle,  and  so  that  in  the  end  vice  were  commonly  successful, 
and  productive  of  the  greatest  amount  of  happiness,  truly  we 
know  not  if  there  would  be  any  remains  of  apparent  virtue  among 
the  great  mass  of  mankind  ;  it  is  certain  that  violence  must  have 
reigned  to  an  extent  which  would  have  made  this  world  altogether 
intolerable,  and  have  rendered  it  a  deed  of  benevolence  on  the 
part  of  God  to  destroy  it  with  all  possible  speed.  But  let  us  not 
be  misunderstood.  We  do  not  mean  to  assert  that  man  has 
nothing  but  a  cold  and  calculating  selfishness.  We  assume  that 
he  has  generous  and  sympathetic  feelings,  (we  speak  not  now  of 
virtuous  principle  ;)  and  the  aids  to  benevolence  which  God  has 
furnished  serve  the  same  purposes  as  props  do  to  the  ivy — give 
it  bearing  and  direction ;  and  benevolence,  we  suspect,  would 
often  fail  without  such  a  support  to  lean  on. 


RESTRAINTS  UPON  VICE.  231 

III.  Nor  are  these  the  only  means  which  God  can  employ,  or 
which  he  does  employ,  for  the  correction  of  evil,  and  the  further- 
ance of  that  which  is  good.  He  has  other  and  incidental,  but 
still  most  potent,  means  of  furthering  the  same  ends  in  the 
"  wheel  within  a  wheel,"  by  which  he  can  arrest  the  purposes  of 
mankind,  and  the  effects  that  would  follow,  at  the  instant  of  the 
design  or  execution.  The  history  of  the  world  is  ever  displaying 
instances  in  which  schemes  of  daring  wickedness,  fitted  to  pro- 
duce incalculable  evil,  have  been  stayed  in  their  progress,  by 
providential  interpositions.  How  often  have  the  judgments  of 
God  visibly  alighted  upon  the  daring  opposers  of  the  will  of  God, 
while  others  have  escaped  !  just  as  the  lightnings  strike  the  bold 
cliff  and  the  lofty  tower  which  rise  proudly  to  heaven,  while  the 
plains  and  the  lowly  cottages  are  unmolested.  The  death  of  the 
Roman  Emperor  Julian,  when  he  was  bent  upon  the  restoration 
of  polytheism,  and  on  the  crushing  of  Christianity,  as  yet 
adopted  by  perhaps  a  minority  of  the  empire,  is  one  of  the  many 
providences  which  every  reflecting  mind  will  discover  in  the 
history  of  the  Church  of  Christ.  On  the  other  hand,  the  good 
which  could  not  make  way  by  its  own  strength,  has  often  been 
helped  on  by  favouring  circumstances.  The  coldest  and  most 
secular  historians  are  constrained  to  discover  an  overruling 
power  in  the  events  which  furthered  and  hastened  the  Great 
Reformation.  The  simultaneous,  or  all  but  simultaneous,  dis- 
covery of  the  magnet,  of  the  art  of  printing,  of  the  telescope, 
and  of  a  new  world,  the  general  revival  of  letters,  and  the  awak- 
ening of  a  keen  spirit  of  inquiry  and  enterprise,  opened  the  way 
for  truths  which  might  not  have  spread  so  rapidly  by  their  own 
inherent  power.  Take  any  great  or  beneficent  change  produced 
in  the  state  of  the  world,  inquire  into  the  causes  and  occasions 
of  it,  and  you  find  a  host  of  conspiring  agencies  all  tending  to  a 
given  point,  and  evidently  under  the  guidance  of  a  presiding 
mind. 

What  all  men  see  on  a  great  scale  in  the  history  of  the  world 
and  of  great  events,  every  observant  man  must  have  remarked  in 
his  own  little  circle  of  acquaintanceship,  or  in  his  own  personal 
experience.  Every  one  who  has  watched  the  ways  of  providence 
must  have  noticed  how  schemes  of  good  were  furthered,  and  at 
last  were  crowned  with  success,  not  so  much  through  their  own 
efficiency  or  excellence,  as  by  the  circumstances  which  favoured 


232  AIDS  TO  VIRTUE,  AND 


their  development  and  execution.  Almost  all  may  remember 
instances  in  which  the  plots  of  cunning  were  disclosed  when  they 
seemed  about  to  be  successful,  or  in  which  the  hand  of  violence 
was  arrested  when  it  was  lifted  for  action. 

IV.  As  the  aggregate  result  of  the  regulations  of  Providence, 
there  are  groups  of  arrangements  fitted  to  restrain  the  individual 
from  vice,  and  to  cement  society.  The  class  of  arrangements  last 
considered  are  of  an  individual  and  accidental  character,  being;  of 
the  nature  of  those  fortuities  which,  as  we  have  seen,  serve  so 
important  a  purpose  in  the  government  of  God.  Those  now  fall- 
ing under  consideration  are  rather  of  the  nature  of  those  general 
laws  which,  acting  uniformly,  exercise  a  constant  influence  upon 
the  world.  Like  these  general  laws,  they  are  the  result  of  skilful 
adjustments  ;  and  being  constant,  or  recurrent  after  proper  inter- 
vals, they  tend  to  bind  mankind  together,  and  to  counterbalance 
ever-recurrinir  evils. 

A  few  instances,  out  of  many  presenting  themselves  to  the 
observant  eye,  will  indicate  the  kind  of  means  which  God  employs 
to  keep  human  waywardness  within  bounds.  Look  at  this  quiet 
rural  district  of  our  land,  a  kind  of  peninsula  to  the  contiguous 
world,  from  which  it  is  all  but  separated.  There  is  not  an  event 
occurring  during  many  years  to  disturb  the  outward  harmony 
which  visibly  reigns  in  it.  The  citizen  who  retreats  to  it  in  the 
season  of  the  year  wdien  all  nature  is  smiling,  is  inclined  to  think 
that  this  decorum  must  proceed  from  the  loftiest  principle  and 
high-toned  religion,  and  concludes  that  he  has  discovered  paradise 
still  lingering  on  our  earth.  Alas  !  he  needs  only  a  little  familiar 
and  household  acquaintance  with  the  inhabitants  to  discover  that 
there  are  feuds,  individual  and  family,  raging  in  many  a  bosom. 
As  he  is  initiated  into  the  secrets  of  the  little  world,  he  rinds 
that  it  is  but  a  miniature  of  the  great  world,  and  that  there  are 
smouldering  jealousies,  heartburnings,  and  animosities,  where  he 
thought  that  all  had  been  confidence  and  love.  Whence  then, 
you  ask,  this  pleasing  propriety  and  visible  peace  ?  On  inquiry, 
you  may  find  that  there  are  counteracting  influences  in  the  very 
evil  agencies  which  are  at  work  in  the  community.  Every  man's 
eye  is  upon  his  neighbour's  character,  and  he  who  exhibits  selfish- 
ness, deceit,  or  violence,  instantly  becomes  the  object  of  general 
suspicion  and  dislike.  The  very  curiosity  and  jealousy,  so  prying, 
which  the  parties  exercise  towards  one  another,  are  the  means  of 


RESTRAINTS  UPON  VICE.  233 

counteracting  the  evil  consequences  which  would  follow,  as  the 
heat  of  summer  raises  on  their  mountains  the  moisture  and  the 
cloud  to  moderate  its  scorching  influence. 

Turn  now  to  a  different  scene,  to  one  of  the  closest  lanes  of  a 
crowded  city.  So  far  from  every  man  knowing  his  neighbour's 
character,  there  is  scarcely  any  one  who  knows  his  neighbour's 
name.  You  meet  here  with  none  of  those  backbitings  and 
jealousies  which  so  fretted  the  other  community ;  but  we  miss, 
too,  that  decorum  which  proceeds  from  a  sense  of  character,  and 
a  fear  of  offence.  The  personal  and  family  feuds  have  disap- 
peared, but  there  have  departed  with  them  all  the  offices  of  kind 
and  obliging  neighbourhood ;  and  we  are  among  a  population 
radically  selfish,'  often  malignant,  and  always  disposed  to  lay  hold 
on  every  criminal  indulgence  which  does  not  insert  its  sting  into 
them  the  instant  they  attempt  to  seize  it.  Here,  too,  however, 
we  have  a  counteracting  influence  in  the  vigilant  police,  which 
can  be  easily  provided  by  communities  assembled  in  cities. 
Public  opinion  was  the  police  in  the  rural  district ;  and  when  the 
public  became  too  extended,  and  its  opinion  too  diffused  to  be 
effective  at  any  one  point,  it  found  means,  in  its  very  extension, 
of  arresting  the  evil  which  its  extension  occasioned. 

The  same  kind  of  observation,  carried  out  to  other  states  of 
society,  will  detect  similar  counterbalancing  agencies.  The  poor 
are  dependent  upon  one  another,  and  are  in  consequence  kind 
and  obliging.  It  is  seldom  that  a  sufferer  in  the  lower  grades  of 
life  is  neglected  by  neighbours  and  relatives.  A  dozen  sick- 
nurses  are  ready  to  proffer  their  services  when  a  poor  man  is  in 
severe  distress,  and  are  all  the  more  likely  to  perform  their 
offices  in  a  kindly  manner,  from  the  circumstance  that  they  look 
for  no  fee  or  reward.  The  richer  portion  of  the  community  do 
not  feel  themselves  to  be  so  dependent  on  their  neighbours  and 
friends,  and  hence  are  not  so  kind  in  their  offices ;  but  then  the 
sufferer  does  not  require  the  same  tokens  of  friendship  and 
regard,  for  he  can  purchase  for  money  what  the  other  obtains 
from  affection.  The  same  remark  applies  to  those  countries 
which  differ  from  each  other  in  respect  of  the  provision  made  by 
law  for  the  support  of  the  poor.  When  there  is  no  legal  pro- 
vision, every  poor  man  is  disposed  to  sympathize  with  his  neigh- 
bour, from  a  keen  perception  of  his  own  possible  condition.  On 
the  introduction  of  poor-laws,  these  gentle  offices  are  apt  to  cease, 


234  CONDITIONS  OF  THE  STABILITY 

for  they  are  felt  to  be  no  longer  demanded  by  so  strong  and 
imperative  a  necessity. 

Again,  the  savage  feels  how  dependent  he  is  upon  his  family 
and  his  tribe,  and  he  exhibits  corresponding  qualities.  He  be- 
comes hospitable  and  clannish  in  his  character.  But  while  kind 
to  individuals,  and  devoted  to  his  tribe,  he  has  no  universal 
benevolence,  and  he  reckons  himself  at  liberty  to  make  war  with 
every  tribe  not  specially  connected  with  his  own.  As  society 
advances  in  civilisation,  each  man  becomes  less  dependent  on 
immediate  neighbours,  but  feels  more  and  more  his  connexion 
with  the  race  ;  and  hence  he  is  apt,  in  the  clashing  competitions 
of  the  world,  to  become  individually  selfish,  but  generally  bene- 
volent and  cosmopolitan. 

Without  such  arrangements,  favouring  what  is  good  and  dis- 
couraging what  is  evil,  virtue  would  have  great  difficulty  in 
retaining  a  place  in  our  world.  But  by  such  powerful  instru- 
mentality, this  world  can  be  kept  from  lapsing  into  total  dis- 
order. This  agency  is  so  powerful,  operates  so  universally, 
can  so  change  with  changing  circumstances,  can  be  wielded 
so  suddenly  and  unexpectedly,  and  with  such  awful  and 
irresistible  force,  that  God  might,  we  doubt  not,  rule  by  it  a 
world  in  which  there  was  not  one  virtuous  principle  or  truly  holy 
affection. 


SECT.  III. — ARRANGEMENTS  NEEDFUL  TO  THE  STABILITY  OF  THE 

SOCIAL  SYSTEM. 

The  arrangements  noticed  in  last  section  related  more  especially 
to  man  as  an  individual ;  those  considered  in  this  relate  to  man 
in  his  social  capacity.  There  are  arrangements  needful  in  order 
to  the  stability  of  the  social  system,  and  first  among  these  we 
meet  with  two  positive  institutions. 

First,  There  is  the  Family  Ordinance.  Instead  of  the  human 
species  being  consigned  to  solitary  separation  on  the  one  hand, 
or  of  being  congregated  into  large  promiscuous  companies  or 
herds  on  the  other  hand,  we  find  them  allotted  along  the  surface 
of  this  wide  world  into  little  communities,  living  under  the  same 
roof,  and  connected  by  a  thousand  gentle  offices  which  they 
discharge  one  towards  another,  and  to  which  they  are  prompted 


OF  THE  SOCIAL  SYSTEM.  235 

by  interesting  ties  of  feeling  and  affection.  The  system  is  in 
admirable  adaptation  to  our  state  and  our  nature.  We  come 
into  the  world,  not  like  the  young  of  some  animals,  able  to  act 
for  ourselves,  but  in  utter  helplessness,  and  we  find  that  God 
has  provided  for  us  kind  parents  who  delight  to  minister  to  our 
infirmities,  and  who  feel  as  if  the  infant's  smile  was  a  sufficient 
reward  for  all  their  toilsome  days  and  waking  nights.  The 
heart  responding  to  heart,  the  reciprocal  tenderness  expressed  in 
a  thousand  practical  ways,  are  fitted,  beyond  anything  which 
man  can  devise  or  conceive,  to  draw  forth  the  feelings  and  to  train 
the  affections  of  the  infant  and  juvenile  mind.  The  memory, 
guided  by  the  heart,  here  comes  to  the  aid  of  the  judgment, 
and  renders  all  lengthened  argument  unnecessary ;  for,  tar  as 
our  memory  goes,  it  calls  up  scenes  of  unwearied  watchfulness 
and  melting  love,  and  tells  us  that  no  nurture  could  be  so 
bountiful,  as  none  could  be  so  pleasant,  as  that  which  takes 
place  under  the  dews  of  a  mother's  kindness  and  the  shelter  of 
a  father's  counsels. 

Wild  theorists  have  laboured  to  overturn  this  system,  but 
God  in  his  providence  hath  inscribed  folly  on  all  their  mad  and 
profane  attempts  to  disturb  his  arrangements ;  and  it  has  been 
found,  that  after  producing  not  a  little  temporary  misery,  these 
parties  have  been  obliged  to  abandon  their  schemes  as  prejudi- 
cial or  impracticable.  In  ancient  Sparta,  Lycurgus  substituted 
public  education  for  family  training,  and  the  experiment  termi- 
nated in  rendering  a  whole  nation  cold-hearted  and  selfish. 
Socialism,  under  some  of  its  forms,  has  proposed  to  exchange 
a  household  for  a  promiscuous  life;  but,  as  might  have 
been  anticipated,  the  change  when  carried  into  effect  has  led 
to  caprice  and  cruelty,  and  opened  the  floodgates  to  every  form 
of  vice. 

Secondly,  There  is  the  ordinance  of  Civil  Government. 
There  is  a  necessity  for  such  a  restraint,  in  order  to  the  very 
existence,  and  still  more  in  order  to  the  wellbeing,  of  commu- 
nities. God  has,  also,  speedily  confounded  all  those  visionary 
systems  which  have  been  projected  to  supersede  this  institution 
of  heaven.  There  are  means  of  securing  governors,  in  the  love 
of  power  which  is  so  strong  in  some  minds,  and  in  the  talent 
for  ruling  for  which  other  parties  are  distinguished.  There  is  a 
provision  for  obedience  being  rendered,  not  only  in  the  palpable 


236  CONDITIONS  OF  THE  STABILITY 

advantages  of  government,  but  in  the  feelings  of  allegiance,  of 
loyalty,  and  nationality,  which  spring  up  in  the  human  bosom. 

Thirdly,  There  is  the  physical  dependence  of  man.  We 
have  seen,  in  the  last  chapter,  how  dependent  man  is  on  physical 
arrangements.  All  the  parts  of  the  frame  are  so  closely  con- 
nected with  each  other,  that  the  least  derangement  in  any  one 
may  render  all  the  rest  useless.  We  have  seen,  too,  how  this 
complication  becomes  greater  according  as  we  approach  nearer 
to  man — 'how  the  net  becomes  more  closely  woven  the  nearer  we 
come  to  him  who  is  restrained  by  it.  The  laws  of  the  principle 
of  life,  of  the  brain,  of  the  nervous  system,  of  the  muscles,  of 
the  bones,  of  the  lungs,  of  the  heart,  of  the  liver,  and  other  vital 
functions,  must  all  be  in  healthy  operation,  in  order  to  constant 
and  well  regulated  activity.  Every  one  knows,  too,  how  much 
the  temper,  the  sensibilities,  the  floating  impulses  and  notions, 
nay,  the  very  talents  and  opinions  of  mankind,  and  through 
them  their  whole  character,  are  determined  by  the  bodily  tem- 
perament. It  is  good  for  man  to  consider  how  dependent  he 
becomes  in  consequence  of  this  involution  of  providence.  Not 
that  he  is  to  be  regarded,  after  the  representation  of  some  silly 
theorists  of  our  day,  as  the  mere  creature  of  circumstances,  his 
character  taking  its  hue  like  his  skin  from  the  climate  in  which 
he  lives,  or  like  the  insect  from  the  food  by  which  it  is  nourished. 
Man  is  conscious  that  he  has  a  judgment  and  will  of  his  own, 
which,  as  being  the  true  determining  causes  of  his  conduct,  in- 
volve him  in  deep  responsibility.  But  while  man's  will  and 
accountability  remain  untouched,  God  has  means  of  accomplish- 
ing his  will,  and  that  with  or  without  the  concurrence  of  man's 
will.  While  men's  thoughts  and  affections  and  volitions  are  all 
free,  God  has  a  thousand  ways  of  directing,  or  of  thwarting,  if 
need  be,  their  purposes,  and  turning  them  towards  the  accom- 
plishment of  his  own  plans  of  infinite  wisdom. 

Fourthly,  The  uncertainty  of  human  life  is  also  one  of  the 
statical  conditions  of  the  government  of  the  world.  While  a 
life  much  shorter  and  more  uncertain  would  have  prevented 
man  from  undertaking  any  great  work,  and  laid  an  arrest  on 
human  progress,  it  is  just  as  evident  that  a  more  lengthened  life, 
with  a  greater  security  for  continued  health,  would  have  tempted 
mankind  to  bolder  schemes  of  ambition  and  wickedness. 

May  we  not  discover  a  reason  in  some  of  the  considerations 


OF  THE  SOCIAL  SYSTEM.  237 

now  urged  for  the  shortening  of  the  lives  of  mankind  after  the 
flood  of  Noah  ?  For  wise  reasons,  all  of  which  we  may  never  be 
able  to  discover,  but  one  of  which  no  doubt  was  the  lengthening 
of  human  experience,  and  the  handing  down  of  the  results  of  it 
to  future  generations,  God  saw  fit  to  allot  to  mankind  a  longer 
earthly  existence  in  the  early  ages  of  the  world.  And  until  such 
time  as  mankind  became  numerous,  had  learned  the  art  ot 
combination,  and  were  disposed  to  spurn  at  all  moral  restraint, 
there  might  be  some  measure  of  order  and  peace  produced  by 
God,  even  in  a  wicked  world  where  men  lived  till  nearly  the  age 
of  1000  years.  But  when  the  race  had  learned  the  arts,  when 
they  knew  how  to  unite  in  their  daring  and  ambitious  schemes, 
when  the  sons  of  God,  the  children  of  the  Church,  married  into 
the  wicked  world,  and  the  restraint  which  the  Church  laid  upon 
the  world  was  removed,  then  it  was  befitting  that  the  existing 
dispensation  should  be  terminated  by  a  flood,  which  swept  away 
the  inhabitants.  The  whole  earth  was  filled  with  violence ;  and 
but  for  a  change  in  the  method  of  government,  this  violence 
might  have  become  beyond  measure  intolerable.  In  the  new 
dispensation,  the  bow  in  the  cloud  was  a  sign  that  the  earth 
should  not  henceforth  be  visited  by  such  a  catastrophe  ;  but  con- 
temporaneously with  it,  and  in  order  to  render  such  an  interpo- 
sition no  longer  needful,  there  was  to  be  a  shortening  of  man's 
life,  and  apparently,  too,  a  greater  uncertainty  as  to  the  time  of 
the  approach  of  death.  Man's  gigantic  plans  of  wickedness 
were  not  henceforth  to  be  arrested  by  so  terrible  an  event  as  the 
Flood ;  but  means,  too,  wrere  taken  to  prevent  their  schemes 
from  attaining  so  tremendous  a  magnitude.  May  we  not  dis- 
cover, too,  in  the  confusion  of  tongues  at  Babel,  and  the  conse- 
quent dispersion,  a  special  arrangement  of  heaven  for  keeping 
the  inhabitants  of  this  world  from  combining  to  produce  such 
an  amount  of  disorder  and  violence  as  must  have  prevented  this 
world  from  fulfilling  the  ends  contemplated  by  its  Governor  ? 

Fifthly,  There  is  the  dependence  of  every  man  upon 
others  of  his  sfecies.  Even  Robinson  Crusoe  was  dependent 
on  other  men  for  his  gun,  which  may  have  employed  many  a 
hand  in  constructing  its  several  parts.  The  greater  portion  of 
mankind  must  lean  more  or  less  on  a  vast  number  of  other  men. 
We  should  consider,  too,  how  these  other  men  on  whom  we 
depend  are  as  dependent  as  ourselves  on  others  of  the  race.     It 


238  CONDITIONS  OF  THE  STABILITY 

would  appear  as  if  there  was  so  little  coherence  in  society,  so 
little  of  true  affection  or  righteous  principle  to  band  the  mem- 
bers which  compose  it  together,  that  they  have  to  be  made  to 
stand  like  piles  of  dead  wood  (so  different  from  living  trees)  by 
leaning  upon  each  other.  What  dreadful  catastrophes  follow, 
and  what  a  confounding  of  human  wisdom,  when  God  removes 
any  of  these  supports,  and  allows  the  fabric  to  fall  by  its  own 
instability. 

In  consequence  of  advancing  civilisation,  the  ends  of  the  earth 
are  brought  much  nearer  each  other.  It  might  seem  as  if  man- 
kind could  in  consequence  now  combine  the  more  readily  for  the 
accomplishment  of  some  great  end,  fitted,  it  may  be,  to  defeat  the 
Divine  purposes,  like  the  building  of  the  tower  of  Babel,  which 
was  meant  to  keep  the  race  together,  when  it  was  the  purpose  of 
God  to  disperse  them.  But  in  the  very  widening  of  civilisation, 
there  are  powers  called  forth  fitted  to  restrain  the  evil  which  that 
extension  might  produce.  In  the  independence  of  thinking  and 
acting  which  advancing  enlightenment  evokes,  there  is  a  coun- 
teraction to  the  fatal  influence  exercised  by  individual  men — such 
as  priests,  lawgivers,  and  conquerors,  who  acquired  so  extensive  a 
sway  in  the  early  ages  of  the  world.  The  age  of  heroes  is  gone, 
because  the  world  is  now  too  sagacious  not  to  see  their  ambition 
and  pretence.  In  the  adjustments  of  Divine  providence,  the 
very  pride  and  rivalry  of  mankind  are  made  to  impose  mutual 
restraints  upon  themselves,  and  one  evil  is  made  to  counter- 
balance another. 

It  must  be  acknowledged,  however,  that  while  the  power  of 
great  men  has  diminished,  and  to  all  appearance  must  continue 
to  lessen,  the  power  of  combination  among  masses  is  greatly 
augmented  by  the  intercommunion  of  ideas  and  sentiments.  If 
large  bodies  of  mankind  could  now  be  made  to  move  under  the 
inspiration  of  one  common  principle  or  impulse,  the  effects  pro- 
duced would  be  greater  than  in  the  earlier  ages  of  the  world. 
The  inroads  of  the  barbarians  upon  the  Roman  empire,  and  the 
spread  of  Mahometanism  in  the  seventh  and  eighth  centuries, 
would  be  insignificant  events  when  compared  with  the  results 
which  would  follow  in  these  times  from  a  similar  impulse,  politi- 
cal or  religious,  seizing  the  nations  of  the  earth,  and  alluring 
them  on  to  conquest.  It  is  possible,  that  before  the  world's 
history  closes,  the  powers  of  evil  may  thus  unite  in  one  grand 


OF  THE  SOCIAL  SYSTEM.  239 

effort  and  determination  to  gain  universal  dominion.  Should 
such  an  occurrence  take  place,  as  seems  very  probable,  it  may  be 
safely  predicted  that  the  movement  will  contain  within  itself 
the  seeds  of  its  own  dissolution.  For  in  very  proportion  as  man's 
power  of  swaying  distant  regions  and  attaining  great  ends  in- 
creases, so  do  the  means  multiply  by  which  G-od  can  arrest  human 
passion  and  disappoint  human  ambition.  The  ball,  as  it  seems 
to  gather  strength  and  to  roll  on,  bearing  with  it  a  chilling 
atmosphere,  will  be  found,  under  an  influence  from  heaven,  to 
melt  away  more  suddenly  than  it  appeared. 

What  are  commonly  called  the  vis  medicatrix  of  nature,  and 
the  vis  conservatrix  of  society,  spring,  we  believe,  from  such 
checks  and  adjustments  as  these,  rather  than  from  any  inherent 
power  in  the  objects  themselves.  Society  is  so  constituted,  that 
there  is  a  means  of  counteracting  human  caprice,  whatever  be 
the  form  assumed  by  it.  Society,  like  the  steam-engine,  has 
regulators  and  safety-valves,  all  self-acting,  and  ready  to  meet 
the  threatened  evil,  from  whatever  quarter  it  may  proceed.  At 
the  same  time,  it  always  happens  that  things  advance  most  pros- 
perously when  there  is  no  interference  with  them  on  the  part  of 
meddling  wisdom,  which  is  folly  differing  from  other  folly  only 
in  this,  that  it  is  more  conceited. 

With  such  aids  to  virtue  and  restraints  upon  vice,  we  see  how 
perilous  it  would  be  to  alter  the  present  constitution  of  things  in 
favour  of  what  might  seem  to  human  wisdom  to  be  a  better. 
Defects  might  easily  be  pointed  out  in  the  very  theories  of  the 
communists,  whether  they  assume  the  forms  of  St.  Simon,  of 
Owen,  or  Fourier.  All  proceed  on  the  assumed  principle,  that 
men  are  always  or  usually  swayed  by  an  enlarged  self-love, 
according  to  which  every  one  will  pursue  his  best  interests  when 
he  knows  them  ;  and  on  the  supposed  fact  that  the  associations 
set  up  do  provide  for  the  best  interests  of  the  members.  Now, 
this  principle,  we  might  show,  proceeds  on  a  mistaken  view  of 
human  character.  Mankind  are  far  more  frequently  swayed  by 
feelings,  sentiments,  impulses,  and  passions  ;  by  kindness,  sym- 
pathy,and  affection ;  by  vanity,  pride,  and  obstinacy ;  by  ambition, 
envy,  and  revenge,  than  even  by  a  calculating  selfishness.  In 
the  systems  of  the  Communists  there  is  and  can  be  no  provision 
made  for  exercising,  for  guiding,  and  controlling  such  a  conglo- 
merate of  sentiments  and  lusts.     Hence  their  experimental  com- 


240  CONDITIONS  OF  THE  STABILITY  OF  SOCIETY. 

rnunities  have  invariably,  and  very  speedily,  become  scenes  of 
wretchedness  and  dissension.*  But  there  is  such  a  provision 
made  in  the  constitution  of  the  world  as  under  the  discipline  of 
God ;  and  all  attempts  to  iuterfere  with  any  particular  part  of 
it,  such  as  the  family  ordinance,  will  turn  out  to  be  as  foolish  as 
they  are  commonly  wicked  and  profane. 

All  endeavours  to  elevate  the  degraded  and  the  fallen,  so  far 
as  they  are  not  immediately  religious,  should  proceed  on  the 
principle  of  calling  in  those  aids  and  restraints  which  Provi- 
dence famishes.  If  the  rising  members  of  our  agricultural 
labourers,  for  instance,  are  degraded  in  some  districts  of  our 

*  The  grand  difficulty  felt  by  the  enemies  of  revelation  in  the  present  day,  is  to 
devise  a  social  system  which  may  stand  -without  a  religion,  or  to  devise  a  religion 
which  may  stand  a  moment's  investigation,  and  have  power,  which  deism  has 
not,  over  the  heart  ami  conduct  of  men.  M.  Comte  discovering  that  mankind  must 
have  a  religion,  has  developed  one  in  his  Politique  Positive,  now  completed.  In 
it  we  have  a  priesthood,  worship,  and  sacraments,  but  no  God  ;  the  infant  being 
trained  to  be  a  polytheist  and  a  fetichist — the  child  to  be  a  monotheist,  and  the 
full  grown  man  being  instructed  to  adore  a  Grand  Etre,  who  is  the  "  continuous 
resultant  of  all  the  forces  capable  of  voluntarily  concurring  in  the  universal  per- 
fectioning  of  the  world,  not  forgetting  our  worthy  auxiliaries,  the  animals,"  (tome 
ii.  p.  60,)  who  is,  in  short,  a  deification  of  Comte's  system  of  science  and  sociology. 
He  complains  that  his  admirers  in  this  country  have  not  adopted  his  moral  and 
social  scheme,  and  speaks  of  the  conversion  of  those  who  adopt  his  positivity  and 
reject  his  religion  as  an  abortion,  proceeding  from  impotence  of  intellect,  or  in- 
sufficiency of  heart,  commonly  from  both.  (Tome  i.  Pref,  p.  xv. ;  tome  iii.  Pref., 
p.  xxiv.)  What  do  Mr.  Mill  and  Mr.  Lewes  say  to  this  ?  Yet  what  have  they  to 
substitute  for  that  which  they  reject?  If  they  say  that  man  can  do  without  a 
religion,  they  contradict  some  of  the  deepest  principles  of  our  nature.  Or  if  they 
think  that  some  little  clique  in  London  can  devise  a  religion,  let  them  bring  it  out 
to  the  view  that  we  may  examine  it.  Meanwhile  we  are  upon  the  whole  glad  that 
M.  Comte  has  enabled  us  to  judge  of  his.  Christianity  will  not  suffer  by  being 
placed  alongside  of  it.  The  two  best  features  of  it,  love  to  a  neighbour  and  mono- 
gamy, are  taken  from  the  New  Testament,  while  the  sanctions  given  in  the  Word 
of  God  to  both  in  an  authoritative  moral  law  and  a  living  God,  are  removed  without 
a  substitute  being  provided,  to  regulate  a  nature  acknowledged  to  be  extremely 
imperfect,  and  with  discordant  and  selfish  tendencies  far  stronger  that  the  benevo- 
lent affections.  (Tome  iii.  p.  23.)  As  he  has  constituted  himself  high  priest  of 
his  hierarchy,  we  would  place  him — if  only  the  experiment  could  be  conducted 
without  injury  to  immortal  interests — for  the  remainder  of  his  life,  at  the  head  of  a 
"positive''  community,  that  the  jealousies  and  disputes,  of  his  contemplative  and 
active  classes,  of  his  priests,  women  educators,  and  proletaires,  displeased  with 
the  functions  allotted  to  them,  might  become  an  appropriate  punishment  of  his 
folly.  But  the  experiment  cannot  be  allowed,  for  his  system  would  turn  out  to  be 
the  most  intolerable  despotism  ever  set  up  in  our  world,  as  admitting  not  only  no 
liberty  of  action,  but  no  liberty  of  education  or  thought,  all  being  compelled  to  be 
positivists,  and  atheists  as  well.     (See  this  avowed,  tome  ii.  p.  8.) 


SOCIETY  AS  UNINFLUENCED  BY  MORAL  MOTIVES.  241 

land,  by  being  cast  out  from  the  family,  the  cure  is  to  be  found 
in  restoring  them  to  the  privilege  of  the  family  ordinance.  It 
will  be  found,  too,  that  every  effectual  means  of  reclaiming  the 
abandoned  and  the  outcast  must  contain  within  it  a  method  of 
bringing  the  parties  anew  under  the  power  of  those  supports 
which  Providence  affords  to  the  continuance  in  virtue.  It  may 
be  doubted,  whether  the  attempts  at  present  made  to  elevate 
the  abandoned  in  the  crowded  lanes  of  our  large  towns  can  be 
successful,  as  a  national  measure,  till  the  very  crowding  of 
human  beings  is  abandoned  as  a  system  contrary  to  nature, 
and  until  the  population  are  spread  out  in  communities  in 
which  the  aids  to  virtue  may  again  come  into  force.'  The  evils 
which  extended  manufactures  have  brought  along  with  them, 
must  be  remedied  by  the  wealth  which  these  manufactures 
have  furnished  being  taxed  to  bring  about  the  natural  system 
which  they  have  deranged.  In  order  to  secure  the  co-operation 
of  Providence  we  must  adopt  the  system  of  Providence,  and 
place  the  parties  under  its  influence.  Without  this,  all  mere 
secular  means  will  be  found  utterly  useless  in  elevating  human 
character  to  a  higher  level.  Human  wisdom  is  in  its  highest 
exercise  when  it  is  observing  the  superiority  of  Divine  wisdom, 
and  following  its  method  of  procedure. 

SECT.  IV. — STATE  OF  SOCIETY  WHEN  THE  AIDS  TO  VIRTUE  AND  THE 
RESTRAINTS  UPON  VICE  ARE  WITHDRAWN. 

We  have  been  pointing  out  some  of  the  embankments  by 
which  the  turbulent  stream  of  human  life  is  kept  in  its  course, 
some  of  the  rocky  barriers  by  which  the  waves  of  this  ever- 
agitated  sea  are  restrained  while  they  lash  upon  them.  Just 
as  the  native  power  of  the  stream  is  seen  when  the  embank- 
ments are  swept  away,  and  the  irresistible  strength  of  the 
ocean  when  its  opposing  barriers  are  broken  down,  so  there 
are  times  and  places  in  which  the  usual  supports  of  virtue  and 
correctives  of  vice  are  removed,  and  we  behold  the  true  ten- 
dency of  inward  humanity.  The  character  of  the  prisoner  is 
discovered  when  the  keepers  are  absent.  We  see  the  true  dis- 
positions of  the  children  at  those  corners  at  which  the  master's 
eye  is  not  upon  them. 

Let  us  examine  the  workings  of  human  nature,  when  those 


242  STATE  OF  SOCIETY  WHEN  THE  AIDS  TO  VIRTUE 

adventitious  circumstances  which  usually  prop  virtue  are  re- 
moved. Take  a  young  man  from  a  kind  and  religious  home, 
transplant  him  suddenly  into  a  foreign  land,  and  place  him 
there  in  a  state  of  society  in  which  high  moral  and  religious 
character,  instead  of  being  valued  and  honoured,  is  rather 
scoffed  at  and  despised,  and  operates  as  a  barrier  in  the  way 
of  success.  This  youth,  had  he  been  allowed  to  remain  in  the 
scenes  in  which  he  was  nurtured,  might  have  been  honourable, 
generous,  and  apparently  pious  in  his  demeanour ;  but  in  the 
new  position  in  which  he  finds  himself,  he  can  be  influenced 
by  none  of  those  considerations  derived  from  prudence  and  the 
oversight  of  kind  friends,  which  before  guided  him — and  it  is 
possible  that,  after  a  brief  struggle,  he  may  abandon  himself  to 
selfishness,  to  rapacity,  and  licentiousness,  under  every  available 
form.  Why  this  difference  ?  Because,  in  the  one  case,  virtuous 
conduct  is  aided,  and  in  the  other  it  is  left  unbefriended.  We 
are  not  at  present  inquiring  into  the  actual  power  which  virtue 
possesses  in  the  human  heart ;  but  it  seems  certain  that  there 
are  thousands  who  court  virtue  when  she  has  a  dowry,  who 
would  discover  no  loveliness  in  her  if  she  had  no  attractions 
beyrond  her  own  beauty. 

The  difficulty  which  the  philanthropist  experiences  in  dealing 
with  the  outcasts  of  society,  on  whom  the  aids  to  virtue  have 
lost  their  power,  furnishes  another  illustration  of  the  same  truth. 
It  is  not  because  they  are  so  much  worse  than  others  that  he 
finds  his  work  to  be  so  difficult,  but  because  motives  which  ope- 
rate powerfully  upon  mankind  in  general,  such  as  pride,  vanity, 
and  a  sense  of  character,  have  no  influence  upon  them  for  good. 
It  is  now  generally  acknowledged  that,  in  order  to  the  reclaim- 
ing of  criminals  whose  term  of  punishment  is  expired,  it  is  abso- 
lutely necessary  to  distribute  them  in  society,  and  in  localities 
in  which  their  previous  conduct  is  unknown,  and  all  that  they 
may  come  once  more  under  the  ordinary  motives  of  humanity. 
Our  philanthropists  have  thus  been  brought  to  acknowledge  the 
wisdom  of  the  Divine  method,  and  find  that  their  success  depends 
on  their  accommodating  themselves  to  it.  Yet  how  dark  a  view 
is  thereby  given  of  human  character,  when  it  needs  such  a  care- 
fully constructed  system  of  props  to  bear  up  that  virtue  which 
should  have  stood  in  its  own  strength  ! 

The  rapidity  with  which  certain  persons  become  utterly  reck- 


AND  RESTRAINTS  UPON  VICE  ARE  WITHDRAWN.  243 

less  and  abandoned  when  detected  in  crime,  also  points  to  the 
same  conclusion.  How  quick,  for  instance,  the  descent  of 
females,  especially  of  ladies  in  the  upper  walks  of  society,  and 
of  the  ministers  of  religion,  when  they  have  fallen  into  intem- 
perance, impurity,  or  some  similar  vice,  and  been  detected  and 
exposed  !  Others  might  fall  into  the  same  sins,  and  rise  again  ; 
but  the  persons  now  referred  to  feel  as  if  a  stain  had  been  left 
on  their  character  which  human  lustrations  cannot  wash  out, 
and  for  which  society  provides  no  expiation  ;  and  concluding 
that  they  cannot  be  bettered,  they  are  led  without  difficulty  to 
abandon  themselves  to  every  besetting  lust.  The  love  of  virtue, 
for  virtue's  sake,  may  be  as  powerful  in  this  class  as  in  others, 
who  have  extricated  themselves  from  the  toils  which  at  one 
time  surrounded  them  ;  and  wherein  then  lies  the  difference  ? 
The  tendency  of  both  is  downward  ;  but  as  the  one  class  is  roll- 
ing on,  it  is  caught,  and  at  last  restrained,  by  a  thousand  objects 
which  Providence  puts  in  the  way,  such  as  vanity,  sense  of 
character,  and  worldly  success  ;  whereas,  in  regard  to  the  other, 
such  barriers  being  removed,  their  course  becomes  that  of  the 
stone  loosened  from  the  brow  of  the  mountain,  and  descending 
with  an  ever  accelerated  speed. 

It  seems  as  if  virtuous  and  religious  principle  were  so  weak, 
that  the  man  of  highest  character  might,  if  placed  in  other  cir- 
cumstances, have  become  the  most  vicious.  No  one  can  tell 
how  much  he  owes  of  the  character  which  he  may  have  been 
able  to  sustain,  to  the  restraints  of  providence,  rather  than  to 
any  high  and  holy  internal  principle. 

Take  either  of  the  extremes  of  earthly  rank,  and  you  find 
human  nature  showing  its  native  inclination.  It  is  proverbial 
that  the  extremes  of  wickedness  collect  at  the  extremes  of 
society.  Place  persons  so  high  that  they  know  that  they  cannot 
mount  higher,  for  they  are  on  the  very  pinnacle,  and  so  protect 
them  that  they  feel  that  they  are  secured  by  their  very  position 
from  falling,  and  the  true  dispositions  of  man's  heart  will  be 
exhibited.  Weaknesses  and  follies,  which  those  who  climb  by 
the  help  of  other  men  the  heights  of  worldly  aggrandizement 
would  carefully  curb  or  conceal,  are  unblushingly  displayed,  or 
perhaps  even  gloried  in,  by  those  who  feel  their  independence ; 
and  vices  which  might  have  been  kept  down  under  a  salutary 
fear  of  failure  are  allowed  to  spring  up  in  rank  luxuriance.     Or 


244  STATE  OF  SOCIETY  WHEN  THE  AIDS  TO  VIRTUE 

take  the  other  extreme.  Place  man  so  low  that  he  cannot  fall, 
chain  him  so  down  that  he  cannot  rise,  and  again  his  inborn 
character  develops  itself.  The  virtues  which  proceed  from  a 
sense  of  shame  and  a  fear  of  offence,  now  disappear,  as  well  as 
all  those  which  originate  in  a  desire  to  rise  in  society.  Discon- 
tent and  grumbling,  envy  and  malignity,  leading  to  dishonesty 
and  reckless  criminality,  become  the  characteristics  of  this  state 
of  society  ;  just  as  luxury  and  licentiousness,  indolence  and  a 
selfish  indifference  to  all  human  interests,  are  the  distinguishing 
features  of  those  who  are  in  the  enjoyment  of  prosperity  which 
cannot  be  broken.  In  the  one  state,  society,  with  its  sunk  and 
dangerous  classes,  spreads  crime  like  a  malaria,  and  is  ready  for 
revolution  ;  while  in  the  other,  it  abandons  itself  to  the  softest 
and  yet  most  selfish  effeminacy,  running  after  every  frivolity, 
ready  to  contend  for  nothing  but  its  own  pleasures,  and  to  toil 
for  nothing  but  the  retention  of  its  ease.  Our  earth  in  the  one 
state  becomes  bare  and  barren,  and  yet  wild,  rugged,  and  horrific, 
with  dashing  cataracts,  and  dizzy  and  headlong  precipices  ;  and 
in  the  other  state,  like  the  dead  swamps  of  moist  tropical  climates, 
polluting  the  very  atmosphere,  and  spreading  disease  and  death 
by  the  excess  of  its  putrid  and  putrefying  luxuriance. 

The  times  when  these  adventitious  props  which  keep  up  society 
are  removed,  have  generally  been  times  of  excessive  criminality. 
Take  the  seasons  when  a  nation  is  intoxicated  and  maddened  by 
prosperity — take  Athens  when  its  free  citizens  have  succeeded 
in  some  of  their  schemes — or  Home  when  the  victorious  general 
distributed  the  spoils  of  his  conquest — or  our  own  country  at  the 
rejoicing  on  account  of  the  restoration  of  Charles  II.,  being  the 
commencement  of  those  scenes  which  produced  so  deleterious  an 
influence  on  the  British  character  in  the  reign  of  that  monarch. 
What  excess  and  riot  in  the  festivals  at  these  times  !  what  an 
abandonment  to  folly  which  does  not  even  deign  to  wear  a  mask, 
or  offer  the  homage  which  vice  usually  pays  to  virtue,  by  acting 
the  hypocrite  !  The  pride  and  intemperance  which  prevail  in 
our  own  land,  when  wages  are  high  and  trade  is  flourishing, 
furnish  illustrations  of  the  same  tendency  in  our  nature. 

Both  poles,  the  negative  as  well  as  the  positive,  are  surcharged 
with  deleterious  influences  and  fatal  power.  A  nation  in  ex- 
treme poverty — abandoned  by  the  stream  of  wealth  which  at 
one  time  fertilized  it — devastated  by  the  inroads  of  war.  or  con- 


AND  RESTRAINTS  UPON  VICE  ARE  WITHDRAWN.  245 

sumed  by  intestine  broils — wasted  by  famine,  or  prostrated  by 
pestilence — has  commonly  .  been  virulent  in  its  wickedness. 
Society  at  these  times  acts  like  the  seamen  who,  when  the  last 
hopes  of  saving  themselves  in  the  storm  have  vanished,  betake 
themselves  to  a  maddening  intoxication,  and  drink  of  any  excit- 
ing or  oblivious  draught  that  may  banish  reflection.  The  social 
affections  are  dried  up  for  lack  of  that  delicate  tenderness  which 
feeds  them,  and  the  selfish  and  malignant  ones. spring  up  on  the 
wrecks  of  human  prosperity,  affording  them  suitable  nourish- 
ment. On  those  dreadful  coasts  on  which  wrecks  are  for  ever 
strewn,  the  inhabitants  are  tempted  to  light  up  fires  to  allure 
the  vessels  with  their  spoils  to  points  at  which  they  may  be 
stranded,  and  their  goods  seized.  It  is  a  picture,  on  a  small 
scale,  of  those  states  of  society  in  which  men  oppressed  with 
want  feel  that  they  cannot  better  their  condition  by  sacrifices 
to  virtue,  and  may  easily  improve  it  by  crime. 

There  have  been  times  of  upheaval  in  the  moral  world  similar 
to  those  periods  which  geologists  describe,  when  the  boiling 
igneous  fluid  from  below  has  uplifted  and  upturned  whole  con- 
tinents and  ocean  beds  which  had  lain  undisturbed  for  ages. 
The  distinctions  of  rank,  and  between  one  man's  property  and 
another's,  have  disappeared,  and,  in  the  confusion,  common 
minds  feel  a  difficulty  in  keeping  hold  of  the  distinction  between 
justice  and  injustice — so  much  are  their  outward  badges  reversed 
and  confounded.  The  king  is  bleeding  upon  the  scaffold  ;  the 
nobles  are  depending  on  their  own  peasantry  ;  judges  are  pri- 
soners at  the  tribunals  over  which  they  presided  ;  the  priesthood, 
so  far  from  having  power  with  heaven,  are  seen  to  be  utterly 
helpless  ;  cunning  is  overreaching  sincerity  ;  might  is  trampling 
upon  right ;  unblushing  confidence  is  the  surest  means  of  suc- 
cess; and  bold  but  mean  men  are  everywhere  grasping  honour 
and  authority.  What  would  be  prudence  in  ordinary  circum- 
stances is  now  the  highest  imprudence,  and  wisdom  with  all  its 
gravity  is  visibly  inferior  to  folly.  At  these  times  vice  will  come 
forth  without  deigning  to  wear  the  garb  of  virtue  ;  it  stalks 
abroad,  with  its  unblushing  face  unveiled,  and  its  haggard  arms 
laid  bare,  to  find  out  and  seize  upon  its  victims  ;  and  it  immo- 
lates them  with  the  one  hand,  while  it  lays  hold  of  the  spoil 
with  the  other. 

The  thefts,  the  incendiarism,  the  rapes,  the  murders,  which 


246  STATE  OF  SOCIETY  WHEN  THE  AIDS  TO  VIRTUE 

are  the  characteristics  of  the  sacking  of  a  town,  have  often  heen 
recorded  by  historians.  The  atrocities  and  horrors  displayed  by 
the  crowded  inhabitants  of  Jerusalem  at  the  time  of  the  siege  by 
Titus — the  madness,  the  murders,  private  and  judicial,  and  the 
unbridled  licentiousness,  of  the  period  of  upheaval  at  the  French 
Revolution,  (prostitutes  graced  all  their  triumphs,  and  theatres 
were  open  every  night  during  the  Reign  of  Terror,)  have  long 
been  the  themes  of  indignant  moralists.*  More  horrific  still 
are  the  scenes  disclosed  when  plague  visits  a  populous  city. 
Thucydides  tells  us,  that,  at  the  time  when  it  raged  at  Athens, 
lawlessness  reigned  to  a  greater  extent  than  ever  it  had  clone 
before.  When  the  people  saw  the  sudden  changes  of  fortune,  in 
the  case  both  of  those  who  perished  so  lamentably  in  the  midst 
of  their  prosperity,  and  of  those  who  before  had  nothing,  and 
who  now  came  to  inherit  large  possessions,  their  ideas  became 
confounded  and  their  principles  unsettled — they  lost  all  sense  of 
honour,  and  openly  committed  deeds  which  men  are  wont  to 
hide  from  the  view.  Looking  upon  their  properties  and  lives  as 
so  precariously  situated,  they  abandoned  themselves  to  whatever 
they  thought  would  afford  them  immediate  enjoyment.  There 
was  no  fear  of  the  gods,  the  historian  tells  us,  for  they  felt  that 
they  could  not  be  bettered  by  the  worship  which  they  paid  ;  nor 
was  the  law  of  man  regarded,  for  they  saw  that  human  law 
could  not  inflict  a  greater  evil  than  that  to  which  they  were  now 
exposed.f  During  the  plague  at  Milan  in  1G30,  the  most 
atrocious  deeds  were  perpetrated.  Persons  named  monatti  were 
authorized  to  enter  any  house  and  inspect  it,  and  were  employed 
to  carry  the  sick  to  the  Lazaretto,  and  the  dead  to  the  sepulchre  ; 
these  men,  becoming  hardened  in  heart  and  blunted  in  feeling 
by  their  horrible  office,  came  forth  from  the  Lazaretto  with 
feathers  in  their  caps  and  singing  merry  songs,  threw  the  dead 
into  the  carts  as  if  they  had  been  sacks  of  grain,  and  entered 
the  houses  of  the  infected  for  the  purposes  of  extortion  and 

*  "  Paris,"  says  Madame  Roland,  "  sees  its  brutalized  population  either  running 
after  ridiculous  fetes,  or  surfeiting  themselves  with  the  blood  of  crowds  of  unhappy 
creatures  sacrificed  to  its  ferocious  jealousy  ;  while  selfish  idlers  still  fill  all  the 
theatres,  and  the  trembling  tradesman  shuts  himself  up  in  his  own  house,  not  sure 
of  ever  again  sleeping  in  his  own  bed,  if  it  should  please  any  of  his  neighbours  to 
denounce  him  as  having  used  unpatriotic  expressions."  All  through  the  Reign  of 
Terror  there  were  thirteen  or  fourteen  theatres  advertised  daily  in  the  newspapers. 

+  B.  ii.  53. 


AND  RESTRAINTS  UPON  VICE  ARE  WITHDRAWN.  247 

plunder  ;  while  many,  perceiving  that  the  trade  was  lucrative, 
assumed  the  dress  of  these  officials,  and  were  guilty  of  robbery 
and  the  most  shameful  excesses.  During  the  plague  in  London 
in  1665,  there  were  numbers  running  with  avidity  to  astrologers 
and  fortune-tellers,  who  plied  their  work  with  more  than  their 
usual  effrontery  and  success  ;  others  who  made  a  boast  of  their 
profanity,  and  sported  their  blasphemy ;  there  were  ( reports  of 
nurses  and  watchmen  hastening  the  dissolution  of  the  diseased, 
in  order  to  get  possession  of  their  property  ;  and  there  was 
more  than  the  common  number  of  thieves  and  robbers,  and 
these  busy  at  their  unhallowed  work  in  the  chambers  and  about 
the  very  persons  of  the  dead  and  dying.  In  a  desolating  plague 
at  Bagdad  in  1831,  there  were  the  usual  robbery  and  pillage ; 
and  it  is  stated,  that  when,  towards  its  close,  the  river  inun- 
dated and  swept  away  15,000  people,  the  sensibilities  of  the 
survivors  were  so  deadened,  that  the  event  passed  without  any 
remark  being  made,  and1  without  an  attempt  to  relieve  the 
sufferers. 

It  looks  as  if  with  but  a  little  more  prosperity  distributed 
among  mankind  on  the  one  hand,  or  with  a  little  more  adversity 
on  the  other,  it  would  have  been  all  but  impossible,  by  the 
ordinary  means  fit  to  be  addressed  to  moral  and  responsible 
beings,  to  keep  this  world  in  subordination.  The  appalling 
wickedness  which  prevailed  at  Rome  in  the  reigns  of  the  em- 
perors who  succeeded  Julius  Cassar,  the  abandoned  shamelessness 
of  the  males  and  females  of  the  upper  classes,  seem  to  show,  that 
if  mankind  generally  were  placed  in  a  situation  in  which  every 
lust  could  be  indulged  without  restraint,  they  would  soon  give 
themselves  up  to  crime  the  most  offensive  and  intolerable.  "  The 
corrupt  and  opulent  nobles,"  says  Gribbon,  "gratified  every  vice 
that  could  be  collected  from  the  mighty  conflux  of  nations  and 
manners.  Secure  of  impunity,  careless  of  censure,  they  lived 
without  restraint  in  the  patient  and  humble  society  of  their 
slaves  and  parasites.  The  emperor,  in  his  turn,  viewing  every 
rank  of  his  subjects  with  the  same  contemptuous  indifference, 
asserted  without  control  his  sovereign  pleasure  of  lust  and 
luxury."*  On  the  other  hand,  the  history  of  individuals,  of 
cities,  and  nations  in  the  time  of  famines  and  plagues,  shows 
that,  with  more  intense  suffering,  the  race  would  have  been  as 

*  Decline  and  Fall,  B.  vi. 


248         SOdETY  AS  uninfluenced  by  moral  motives. 

if  "  drunken  with  wormwood."  With  a  sky  but  a  little  more 
bright  and  fiery,  or  a  little  more  clouded,  the  plants  of  the  earth 
would  wither  ;  with  an  atmosphere  possessing  a  little  more  or  a 
little  less  of  the  vital  element,  the  living  creatures  would  perish ; 
and  it  would  seem  as  if,  with  a  little  more  or  a  little  less  suffer- 
ing in  the  world,  man  would  lead  an  existence  now  troubled 
and  now  prostrated,  in  the  alternate  violence  and  exhaustion  of 
a  fever. 

Such  facts  seem  to  indicate  what  would  have  been  the  state 
of  the  world,  if  mankind,  as  a  whole,  had  been  placed  nearer  the 
one  extreme  or  the  other.  In  the  actual  world  there  is  a  check 
upon  both  these  extremes,  but  a  check  effectual  only  because 
they  are  extremes.  There  are  means,  in  the  circumambient 
conductors,  of  allowing  an  escape  to  the  dangerous  power  which 
may  collect  at  either  pole.  The  indolence  and  luxuriousness  of 
the  prosperous  classes,  as  seen,  for  instance,  in  the  courts  of 
Eastern  kings,  has  no  vitality  in  it,  and  it  putrefies  like  the 
vegetation  of  warmer  climates.  Again,  the  sterner  evils  which 
proceed  from  poverty,  from  discontent,  and  suffering,  clash  and 
fight  till  they  destroy  each  other  and  disappear.  The  extremes 
thus  contain  their  own  checks  within  themselves — both  are 
suicidal ;  while  the  mean  is  kept  in  a  healthy  state  by  the 
skilful  counteractions  of  God's  natural  providence. 

The  conclusion  is  now  forcing  itself  upon  us,  that  virtue,  so 
called,  may  be  upheld  fully  as  much  by  the  providence  of  God 
as  by  the  strength  of  any  inherent  principle  within ;  and  that 
this  world  is  kept  from  inextricable  confusion  by  a  thousand 
minute  arrangements — as  the  ocean  is  held  in  its  bed  by  a 
boundary  of  particles  of  sand. 

And  what  must  be  the  character  and  condition  of  our  race 
when  these  restraints  are  withdrawn,  as  they  must  be  in  the 
other  world  ?  Some  sensitive  minds  shrink  from  the  very  idea 
of  a  place  of  darkness  to  which  the  wicked  are  consigned.  But 
when  the  bad  are  separated  from  the  good,  and  are  under  no 
restraint,  we  cannot  conceive  how  there  should  be  anything  else 
than  hopeless  madness  and  violence.  Men  need  only  to  be 
abandoned  by  God  to  create  before  the  time  a  hell  on  this  earth. 

There  may  be  a  time  coming  in  our  world's  history  when, 
these  restraints  being  removed,  human  wickedness  shall  reign 
without  control ;    when   the  convulsions  hitherto   confined  to 


ADAPTATION  OF  THIS  WORLD  TO  MAN  AS  FALLEN.  240 

particular  spots  shall  become  extensive  as  the  world  ;  and  when 
such  scenes  as  those  presented  in  the  fall  of  Jerusalem,  at  the 
close  of  the  Jewish  dispensation,  shall  be  acted  on  a  larger 
theatre,  with  all  men  as  actors,  and  the  universe  as  spectators. 
It  has  often  been  remarked,  that  revolutions  accomplish  in  the 
moral  world  what  thunder-storms  do  in  the  natural  world ;  and 
it  has  been  observed  by  Niebuhr,  that  plagues,  such  as  that  at 
Athens  in  the  time  of  Pericles,  and  at  Koine  in  the  age  of  M. 
Aurelius,  are  the  termination  of  one  course  of  things  and  the 
commencement  of  another ;  and  it  is  conceivable  that  this 
present  dispensation  of  things  may  terminate  in  a  convulsion, 
which  is  to  be  the  forerunner  of  that  era  of  peace  which  is  to 
close  our  world's  history.  The  pillars  on  which  this  present 
imperfect  dispensation  is  supported  may  be  pulled  down,  to 
bury  ia  the  ruins  all  that  is  evil,  and  as  the  precursor  of  a  period 
of  peace  and  glorious  liberty. 

SECT.  V. — ADAPTATION  OF  THIS  WORLD  TO  MAN,  CONSIDERED  AS 

A  FALLEN  BEING. 

We  now  return  to  a  subject  which  came  frequently  before  us 
in  the  first  book.  Let  us  inquire  what  light  the  arrangements 
of  heaven,  which  we  have  been  considering,  throw  upon  the 
character  of  man,  or  rather  upon  the  view  which  God  seems  to 
take  of  the  character  of  man.  We  are  aware  that  the  argument 
cannot  be  conclusive,  till  we  take  a  separate  survey  of  human 
nature  on  independent  evidence.  But  still  it  may  be  confirma- 
tory of  the  inferences  to  be  drawn  in  the  subsequent  book,  to  find 
all  other  roads  leading  to  the  same  point — all  the  lines  converging 
to  one  centre.  It  is  not  needful  to  repeat  what  was  said  in  the 
first  book  as  to  the  various  indications  given  in  God's  works  of 
a  holy  God,  a  moral  governor,  and  a  fallen  world.  We  feel  now, 
however,  as  if,  after  the  survey  taken,  we  were  able  to  bring 
new  considerations,  and  old  considerations  with  new  force,  to 
support  the  doctrine  which  then  recommended  itself  on  the 
ground  of  general  probability. 

Looking  at  the  arrangements  which  God  hath  made  in  the 
physical  world,  we  find  them  to  be  actually  employed  in  guid- 
ing and  restraining  mankind.  Looking  at  their  structure  and 
organization,  we  find  them  fitted  to  accomplish  these  ends.     We 


250  ADAPTATION  OF  THIS  WORLD  TO  MAN 


are  entitled,  then,  to  conclude  that  they  are  intended  to  effect 
these  purposes.  We  say  intended ;  for  while  man  may  perform 
acts  fitted  to  produce  a  given  end  without  knowing  it,  there  is 
room  for  no  such  distinction  in  reference  to  the  doings  of  the 
omniscient  and  omnipresent  God.  We  are  convinced  that  those 
skilful  arrangements,  general  and  particular,  by  which  mankind 
are  trained  to  outward  decency  of  deportment,  and  restrained 
from  evil,  are  all  contemplated  and  designed.  But  would  such 
a  system  of  aids  and  checks  have  been  required  in  an  nnfallen 
world  ?  Would  it  have  been  permitted  in  a  world  in  which  all 
was  pure  and  holy  ? 

Let  us  recall  the  process  by  which  it  is  demonstrated  that  a 
God  exists.  It  is  by  a  brief  argument,  founded  on  the  design 
which  everywhere  meets  the  eye.  But,  as  we  survey  the 
phenomena  that  indicate  design,  we  find  them  indicating  not 
only  design  in  general,  but  to  a  special  end  in  reference  to  man- 
kind. Some  of  them  have  evidently  a  benevolent  purpose,  as 
the  beautiful  revolution  of  the  seasons,  providing  sustenance 
for  God's  creatures.  Others  just  as  palpably  have  it  in  view  to 
keep  men  externally  virtuous  when  virtuous  principle  might 
fail,  to  restrain  evil  when  the  hatred  of  sin  might  exercise  little 
or  no  influence,  and  to  arrest  the  consequences  which  might 
follow  from  human  folly.  Prove  to  us  that  God's  providence  is 
so  ordered  as  to  institute  a  special  provision  for  the  wants  of  his 
creatures,  and  we  shall  prove,  by  a  similar  and  as  large  an  in- 
duction of  facts,  that  it  has  also  respect  to  the  limiting  and  cor- 
recting of  human  vice  and  folly. 

The  argument  may  be  otherwise  stated.  Lord  Brougham,  in 
his  Natural  Theology,  when  proving  that  there  is  benevolent 
design  in  the  works  of  God,  argues  in  the  following  way : — 
"  Had  I  to  accomplish  this  purpose,  I  would  have  used  some 
such  means  ;  or,  had  I  used  these  means,  I  should  have  thought 
I  was  accomplishing  some  such  purpose.  Perceiving  the  adap- 
tation of  the  means  to  the  end,  the  inference  is,  that  some  being- 
has  acted  as  we  should  ourselves  act,  and  with  the  same  views."* 
Suppose,  for  instance,  that  it  was  our  design  to  give  an  easy  and 
pleasant  motion  to  a  certain  member  of  the  body,  could  we  have 
used  a  more  suitable  instrumentality  than  that  actually  employed 
in  the  joints,  with  the  attached  muscles  of  the  human  frame  ? 

*  Nat.  Theo.,  p.  i.  §  3. 


CONSIDERED  AS  A  FALLEN  BEING.  251 

Let  us  cany  out  this  mode  of  reasoning,  and  apply  it  to  the 
providence  of  God,  as  the  author  now  quoted  does,  to  particular 
parts  of  organisms.  Suppose  that  it  had  been  our  design  to 
produce  right  conduct  in  persons  in  whom  right  principle  was 
weak  or  wanting,  to  arrest  and  control  human  action  when  it 
tended  to  evil,  and  to  stop  man  in  his  career  of  wickedness — 
could  we  have  employed  a  readier  or  a  more  effectual  means  ? 
It  does  look  as  if  God  had  constructed  his  providence  with  a 
special  view  to  a  race  considered  by  him  as  prone  to  evil,  and  to 
be  kept  from  it  by  external  restraint,  fully  as  much  as  by  inter- 
nal principle.  It  would  appear  as  if  God  employed  such  an 
instrumentality,  that  he  might  be  governor  of  the  world  in  spite 
of  human  rebellion. 

Let  us  examine  some  of  the  arrangements  of  Providence 
which  seem  specially  to  have  this  end  in  view.  There  is  the 
constitution  of  things,  according  to  which  man  has  a  motive  to 
labour,  and  is  constrained  to  toil.  The  motive  to  labour  and 
industry  is  furnished  by  the  scheme  of  general  laws,  observing 
and  acting  on  which,  he  can  secure  the  object  which  he  needs  or 
desires.  But  there  is  not  only  an  encouragement  to  labour,  there 
is  a  compulsion  to  toil,  to  severe  toil,  arising  from  the  necessity 
of  procuring  sustenance  to  our  bodily  frames,  and  from  the 
grudging  manner  in  which  our  earth  yields  its  fruits,  never  sup- 
plying more,  after  all  the  pains  bestowed  upon  it,  than  can  supply 
the  wants  of  mankind.  Why,  we  ask,  this  necessity  for  toil  ? 
Look  at  the  labourer  doggedly  exerting  himself,  from  early  dawn 
till  night,  in  turning  over  the  surface  of  the  ground,  that  he  may 
allure  it  to  give  him  the  support  which  it  will  not  yield  unless 
coaxed  and  compelled.  Or  view  this  other  individual  levelling 
and  embanking  the  earth,  and  digging  deep  mines,  and  all  that 
he  may  secure  some  object  which  he  cannot  attain  without  a 
large  payment  in  the  sweat  of  his  body.  Enter  one  of  our  great 
factories,  or  the  workshop  of  the  engineer,  and  it  does  look  as  if 
the  heathens  conveyed  a  truth  in  mythic  fable,  when  they  repre- 
sented Vulcan  as  expelled  from  heaven,  and  his  servants,  the 
Cyclopeans,  consigned  to  their  forge  as  a  punishment.  Whence 
the  necessity  for  this  excessive  toil  ?  Why  did  not  God  so  con- 
struct this  earth  as  that  it  would  cheerfully  yield  its  produce 
without  any  labour  beyond  what  would  be  felt  as  a  recreation  ? 
Could  he  not  have  fashioned  the  world  at  first  with  an  apparatus 


252  ADAPTATION  OF  THIS  WORLD  TO  MAN 


fitted  to  save  man  from  drudgery,  and  to  enable  him  to  exert  his 
faculties  of  body  and  mind,  without  feeling  the  exercise  to  be 
grievous  ?  Or  could  he  not  have  given  us  other  senses  besides 
these  five,  to  make  us  in  some  measure  independent  of  the  means 
which  we  are  constrained  by  our  position  to  employ,  and  which 
we  feel  to  be  so  laborious  ?  Or  why,  if  mankind  had  to  labour, 
was  not  the  labour  freed  from  all  feeling  of  burden  and  fatigue  ? 

Then  there  is  not  only  the  toil,  there  is  also  the  pain  to  which 
man  is  subjected,  as  the  necessary  result  of  the  arrangements, 
general  and  particular,  of  Providence.  We  cannot  call  human 
sorrows  accidental,  for  they  follow  directly  from  causes  which 
God  himself  has  instituted.  They  are  as  immediately  the  result 
of  the  Divine  appointment  as  the  very  blessings  which  flow  to 
mankind  in  such  happy  abundance. 

Man  has  been  subjected  to  such  incessant  toil  and  misery  in 
all  ages  of  the  world,  and  in  all  states  of  society.  Take  even 
the  nations  which  have  been  most  celebrated,  and  which  have 
reached  the  highest  pitch  of  civilisation.  The  greater  achieve- 
ments of  man,  his  stupendous  buildings,  and  his  conquests,  are 
apt  so  to  dazzle  the  eyes  that  we  cannot  take  a  very  narrow  or 
correct  inspection  of  them.  As  we  feel  that  thirty  centuries 
look  down  from  the  pyramids  of  Egypt,  we  are  loath  to  make 
inquiry  into  the  exact  degradation  of  those  millions  of  unhappy 
slaves  and  captives  who  toiled  at  the  work.  We  willingly  for- 
get that  the  great  mass  of  the  people,  consigned  to  perpetual 
drudgery,  were  mere  tools  in  the  hands  of  one  man  of  exorbitant 
power,  and  that  he  may  have  been  harassed  by  anxieties,  fears, 
and  suspicions,  as  much  as  those  under  him  were  oppressed  by 
bodily  toil. 

In  our  admiration  of  the  brilliant  intellectual  qualities  of  ancient 
Greece,  we  are  not  apt  to  remember  that  in  Attica,  while  there 
were  120,000  citizens,  there  were  400,000  slaves  ;  that  in  Sparta 
there  were  150,000  citizens  and  500,000  slaves.  In  Italy,  so  early 
as  the  time  of  the  Gracchi,  there  were  hardly  any  free  husbandmen 
to  be  found  ;  and  in  the  city  of  Rome,  nearly  all  manual  labour 
was  performed  by  slaves  or  freed  men.  Single  masters  in  the 
Roman  State  are  reported  to  have  had  so  many  as  10,000  or 
20,000  slaves.  Gibbon  reckons  that,  about  the  time  of  the 
Christian  era,  there  might  be  a  slave  for  every  freeman  through- 
out the  provinces  of  the  em  [tire.     Blair  calculates  that,  at  the 


CONSIDERED  AS  A  FALLEN  BEING.  253 

same  period  in  Italy,  there  might  be  three  times  as  many  slaves 
as  freemen.  We  need  not  draw  any  picture  of  the  evils,  physical, 
intellectual,  and  moral,  to  which  the  people  would  be  exposed  in 
such  a  state  of  society,  as  the  mind  of  modern  Europe  is  happily 
sensitive  on  the  subject  of  slavery. 

Contrasting  ourselves  with  the  ancients,  we  boast,  and  we  are 
so  far  entitled  to  boast,  of  modern  civilisation.  In  former  ages, 
there  was  a  much  more  limited  middle  class,  and  the  lower  orders 
had  vastly  less  freedom  and  privilege.  But  this  difference  has 
at  times  been  over  estimated.  In  ancient  times  the  labouring 
classes  were  supplied,  by  those  who  employed  them,  with  at  least 
the  necessaries  of  life  ;  and  there  were  architects,  master-builders, 
and  overseers  of  works,  there  were  centurions  and  other  army 
officials,  all  with  large  privileges,  besides  proprietors  and  occu- 
pants of  the  soil,  together  composing  an  important  middle  class. 
Then,  it  may  be  doubted  whether  many  of  the  working  classes 
in  our  own  land  and  age  have  not  as  great  an  amount  of  toil, 
and  as  few  bodily  comforts,  (we  speak  not  now  of  higher  privi- 
leges, in  respect  of  which  the  modern  is  immeasurably  superior,) 
to  remunerate  them,  as  the  slaves  in  ancient  Egypt  or  Rome. 
We  are  apt  to  be  deluded  when  we  take  a  survey  of  our  own 
achievements,  as  much  as  when  we  examine  those  of  the  ancients. 
Our  nearness  to  them  impresses  us  unduly  with  their  greatness. 
Ever  since  the  days  of  Dr.  Adam  Smith,  we  have  been  seeking 
to  promote  a  great  abstraction  which  we  call  national  wealth, 
and  in  looking  to  it  we  forget  that  to  which  it  should  be  a 
mere  stepping-stone — national  happiness  and  national  virtue.  A 
traveller  takes  a  rapid  tour  through  the  manufacturing  districts 
of  England,  and  visits  the  more  important  cities  ;  and  he  is  filled 
with  admiration  of  our  large  factories,  our  mighty  machinery, 
and  shipping,  advertised  to  sail  to  every  continent  and  island 
and  important  city  in  the  world.  But  has  he  entered  the  houses 
in  which  the  workmen  live  ? — has  he  sat  at  their  boards  and 
viewed  their  domestic  arrangements  ? — has  he  inquired  into  the 
character  of  woman  as  affected  by  the  state  of  society  or  by  her 
work,  which  takes  her  from  her  family,  or  renders  her  unfit  for 
the  management  of  it  ? — has  he  inquired  into  the  training  of  the 
rising  generation,  and  estimated  the  temptations  of  the  youth  of 
both  sexes  at  that  critical  period  of  life  when  feelings  of  pride  and 
independence  spring  up  simultaneously  with  the  rise  of  the  lustful 


254  ADAPTATION  OF  THIS  WORLD  TO  MAN 


passions  ? — has  he  done  as  the  poet  Crabbe  did,  when,  after  Sir 
Walter  Scott  had  shown  hira  the  beauties  of  nature  and  art  for 
which  the  metropolis  of  Scotland  is  so  distinguished,  he  was  not 
satisfied  till  he  visited  those  humble  and  humbling  abodes  to  which 
the  poor  and  outcast  had  been  driven  by  crime  or  misfortune  ? — 
has  he  gone  down  into  those  crowded  lanes  of  our  cities,  whose 
physical  is  not  so  polluted  as  their  moral  atmosphere,  but  in 
which  the  heart — larger  than  even  the  imagination — of  Chalmers 
used  to  feel  a  livelier  interest  than  in  the  gorgeous  scenes  of 
nature  which  he  so  much  admired  ?  If  he  has  done  this,  he 
will  be  ready  to  doubt  whether  any  country,  in  any  age,  has  pro- 
duced a  more  demoralized  and  debauched  population  than  the 
masses  to  be  found  in  some  of  our  large  cities,  (and  not  a  few  of 
our  agricultural  labourers  are  no  better,)  possessing,  as  they  do, 
little  of  civilisation  but  its  vices,  and  the  knowledge  and  wealth 
of  the  classes  above  them  producing  in  them  only  jealousy  and 
discontent. 

The  imagination  is  apt  to  be  still  more  excited  by  the  stirring 
incidents  of  war.  When  we  read  in  their  own  language,  whose 
march  is  as  magnificent  as  that  of  their  armies,  of  the  conquests 
of  the  Komans,  we  forget  at  what  an  expense  of  human  suffering 
the  victories  were  gained.  We  do  not,  for  instance,  trouble  our- 
selves to  conceive  of  the  misery  which  must  have  resulted  from 
Paulus  Emilius  bringingl.50,000  captives  from  his  wars  in  Epirus, 
and  selling  them  as  prize-money  for  his  soldiers  ;  or  from  Julius 
Caesar  taking  captive  half  a  million  of  human  beings  in  his  Gallic 
wars,  and  selling  them  into  slavery.  In  thinking  of  the  age  of 
Augustus,  there  are  few  persons  who  give  any  prominence  to  the 
circumstance  recorded  by  a  historian — that  fathers  were  in  the 
habit  of  mutilating  the  bodies  of  their  sons,  that  they  might  not 
be  liable  to  serve  in  those  Eoman  armies,  which  were  the  terror 
of  half  the  world.  We  reflect  little  on  the  means,  terrible  as  the 
very  wars  themselves,  which  were  required  to  keep  up  the  war- 
like spirit,  as  when,  in  one  of  the  exhibitions  of  Trajan,  no  fewer 
than  10,000  gladiators  were  made  to  fight  in  the  view  of  the 
Roman  people. 

It  is  an  instructive  circumstance,  that  those  writers  who  give 
us  the  most  heart-stirring  description  of  battles  commonly  stop 
short  at  the  point  at  which  the  battle  is  ended.  It  is  needful, 
for  the  object  which  they  have  in  view,  to  interest  us  in  warlike 


CONSIDERED  AS  A  FALLEN  BEING.  255 

achievements,  which  compose  so  fearfully  large  a  portion  of  the 
matter  of  history  ;  but  when  they  have  carried  us  through  the 
thickest  of  the  fight  to  the  moment  at  which  the  shout  of 
victory  is  raised  by  the  one  party,  and  the  other  party  are  seen 
fleeing  before  their  victors,  they  find  it  needful  to  let  fall  the 
curtain  when  our  eyes  are  about  to  rest  on  the  bodies  of  the 
dying  and  the  dead.  A  walk  over  the  field  of  battle  a  day  or 
two  after  the  conflict  is  closed,  about  the  time  when  the  carrion, 
scenting  the  battle  now  over,  as  the  war-horse  is  said  to  scent  it 
beforehand,  begin  to  pay  their  visits,  might  serve  to  dissipate 
the  illusions  which  the  pomp  and  circumstance  of  war  have 
gathered  around  all  military  exploits.  A  description  of  it,  as  it 
then  presented  itself,  would  be  sufficient  to  affect  every  sensitive 
mind  with  sentiments  of  deepest  disgust  at  war — as  deep  as 
that  bodily  emotion  which  is  felt  when  the  nostrils  are  saluted 
by  the  polluted  atmosphere,  and  the  eyes  fall  on  the  blood, 
now  cold  and  clotted,  which  has  streamed  from  the  hearts  of 
thousands,  whose  mangled  remains  lie  exposed  in  the  face  of 
heaven,  not  a  few  of  them  with  the  fierce  passions  of  war  strongly 
marked  on  their  countenances.  Historians  are  not  careful  to 
tell  us  how  the  shout  of  triumph  has  often  been  answered  back, 
and  all  but  drowned,  by  the  wailings  of  the  wounded  and  dying. 
They  describe  the  rejoicings  and  processions  of  the  victorious 
nation,  and  the  triumph  given  to  their  general ;  but  they  do  not 
conduct  us  to  the  abodes  of  the  widows  who  are  mourning  over 
husbands,  who  died  with  none  to  stanch  their  wounds  or  close 
their  eyes,  and  orphans,  all  the  more  to  be  pitied  because  they 
are  unconscious  of  the  loss  which  they  have  sustained.  The 
moralist  must  needs  supply  what  the  writers  of  the  school  of 
romance  feel  that  they  dare  not  describe  without  depriving  their 
writings  of  half  their  charm,  and  must  paint  the  miseries  which 
wars  have  generally  brought  in  their  train,  in  industry  checked, 
in  the  arts  neglected,  in  countries  depopulated,  in  famine  pro- 
pagating itself  in  widening  circles,  and  pestilence  showing  itself 
a  more  potent  destroyer  of  men  than  the  conqueror  who  boasts 
of  the  victory. 

We  are  quite  aware  that  such  toil,  such  wars,  nay,  that  such 
misery,  are  needful ;  and  that  if  we  could  take  them  away,  we 
would  not  better,  but  rather  deteriorate,  man's  condition.  We 
acknowledge  that  he  would  have  been  more  wretched  than  he  is, 


256      •  ADAPTATION  OF  THIS  WORLD  TO  MAN 


had  lie  not  been  placed  in  circumstances  winch  compel  him  to 
exert  himself  in  bodily  or  mental  labour.  There  may  have  been 
mercy  as  well  as  judgment  in  that  act  of  God  by  which  he  drove 
fallen  man  out  of  paradise.  With  man's  present  nature,  an 
Eden  would  not  have  been  suited  to  him  as  a  place  of  habitation: 
so  situated,  he  would  have  been  obliged,  under  ever-recurring 
ennui,  to  say  with  Shenstone,  in  the  midst  of  the  earthly  para- 
dise in  which  he  embowered  himself,  to  lead  there  an  existence 
as  useless  as  it  was  wretched — "  Every  little  uneasiness  is  suffi- 
cient to  introduce  a  whole  train  of  melancholy  considerations, 
and  to  make  me  utterly  dissatisfied  with  the  life  which  I  now 
lead,  and  the  life  which  I  foresee  I  shall  lead."  We  are  con- 
vinced, besides,  that  if  man  were  not  obliged  to  toil  for  his 
bodily  sustenance  and  comfort,  his  native  restlessness  would 
impel  him  to  deeds  which  would  throw  society  into  hopeless 
disorder,  and  deluge  the  earth  with  blood. — 

"  That  like  an  emmet  thou  must  ever  toil, 
Is  a  sad  sentence  of  an  ancient  date — 
And,  certes,  there  is  for  it  reason  great; 
For  though  it  sometimes  makes  thee  weep  and  wail, 
And  curse  thy  stars,  and  early  rise  and  late, 
Withouten  that  would  come  an  heavier  bale — 
Loose  life,  unruly  passions,  and  diseases  pale."  * 

We  are  also  aware  that  wars,  while  at  all  times  evils  in  them- 
selves, are  often  necessary  evils — necessary  to  save  nations  from 
intolerable  oppression  and  bondage.  We  believe  further,  that 
were  all  liability  to  bodily  suffering  taken  away,  this  world  would 
teem  with  crime  terminating  in  the  most  excruciating  mental 
anguish.  We  are  convinced  that  man's  exposure  to  bodily  pain 
saves  him  from  much  torture  of  mind,  and  from  vice  which  would 
render  this,  world  more  offensive  to  pure  spirits  than  the  most  in- 
fected lazar-house  is  to  the  man  of  sensitive  organs  and  feelings. 

Speaking  of  labour,  Carlyle  says,  "  How  as  a  free-flowing 
channel,  dry  and  torn  by  noble  force  through  the  sour  mud- 
swamp  of  one's  existence,  like  an  ever-deepening  river,  there  it 
runs  and  flows,  draining  off  the  sour  festering  water  from  the 
roots  of  the  remotest  grass-blade,  making,  instead  of  pestilential 
swamp,  a  green  fruitful  meadow,  with  its  ever-flowing  stream. 
How  blessed  for  the  meadow  itself,  let  the  stream  and  its  value 
be  great  or  small  !"f     But  whence,  we  ask,  this  mud-swamp 

*  Thomson's  Castle  of  Indolence.  f  Past  and  Present. 


MYSTERIES  OF  PROVIDENCE  EXPLAINED  BY  SIN.  25*7 

and  sour  festering  waters  requiring  such  a  force-torn  channel  to 
carry  them  off  ?  Man  must  labour  hard  in  this  world  t  >  ward 
off  evils  ready  to  attack  him,  as  the  Kamschatkan  must  exercise 
himself  to  keep  his  frame  warm  ;  but  why  ?  because  both  one 
and  other  are  in  an  ungenial  clime.  We  know  that  it  is  or- 
dained of  God  that  a  certain  amount  of  pleasure  should  attend 
on  labour ;  but  still,  it  is  by  a  kind  of  after-appointment,  and 
as  a  recorapence  for  evil,  as  Venus  was  given  to  Vulcan ;  and 
the  union,  after  all,  is  far  from  being  close  or  constant. 

Acknowledging  the  necessity  for  such  evils,  we  ask,  Whence 
the  necessity  ?  In  the  very  nature  of  things,  says  some  one. 
We  meet  the  declaration  by  a  direct  contradiction.  Surely  it  is 
possible  for  God  to  create  and  govern  a  world  in  which  there  are 
no  such  necessary  evils,  because  there  is  no  evil  at  all.  Whence, 
we  again  ask,  this  necessity  ?  From  the  state  and  character  ot 
man,  is  the  answer  to  which  we  must  at  last  come.  Such  is  the 
native  temper  and  spirit  of  man,  that  if  not  constrained  to  be 
busy,  he  would  be  wretched  and  vicious  beyond  endurance. 
Such  is  the  very  nature  of  man.  that  wars,  pestilences,  and 
famines,  are  necessary  to  prevent  evils  greater  than  themselves. 

But  what  a  dark  and  melancholy  picture  is  thus  given  of  the 
heart  and  tendencies  of  man  !  God  indicates  the  view  he  takes 
of  man's  character  by  the  way  in  which  he  treats  him.  How 
fearful  the  disease  which  requires  such  remedies  !  How  daring 
the  criminality  which  demands  from  a  God,  whose  benevolence 
is  infinite,  such  chains  to  bind,  such  prison  walls  to  confine  it ! 
The  evils  must  be  great  beyond  measurement,  which  demand 
evils  acknowledged  to  be  so  great  to  counteract  and  punish  them. 


SECT.    VI. — EXPLANATION    OF    THE    MYSTERIES    OF    DIVINE    PROVI- 
DENCE FURNISHED  BY  THE  SINFULNESS  OF  MAN'S  CHARACTER. 

"  One  would  imagine,"  says  the  representative  of  scepticism,  in 
Hume's  Dialogues  on  Natural  Keligion,*  "  that  this  world  had 
not  received  the  last  hand  of  the  Maker,  so  little  finished  is 
every  part,  and  so  coarse  are  the  strokes  with  which  it  is  exe- 
cuted. Thus  the  winds  are  requisite  to  convey  the  vapours 
along  the  surface  of  the  globe,  and  to  assist  men  in  navigation  ; 

*  Part  XI. 
R 


258  THE  MYSTERIES  OF  PROVIDENCE 

but  how  oft,  rising  up  to  tempests  and  hurricanes,  do  they 
become  pernicious  !  Rains  are  necessary  to  nourish  all  the 
plants  and  animals  of  the  earth  ;  but  how  often  are  they  defec- 
tive ! — how  often  excessive  !  Heat  is  requisite  to  all  life  and 
vegetation,  but  it  is  not  always  found  in  due  proportion.  On 
the  mixture  and  secretion  of  the  humours  and  juices  of  the  body 
depend  the  health  and  prosperity  of  the  animal ;  but  the  parts 
perform  not  regularly  their  proper  function/'  A  living  philoso- 
pher of  a  different  school,  founding  on  such  observations,  boldly 
declares,  that  even  human  wisdom  could  improve  the  universe, 
which  he  therefore  maintains  can  afford  no  proof  of  Divine 
wisdom  ;  and,  as  evidence  of  his  assertion,  he  refers  to  certain 
delicate  organs  of  the  body,  as  the  eye  and  liver,  so  apt  to  go 
wrong,  and  which  could  easily  have  had  substituted  for  them  an 
organ  not  liable  to  disease.  "  It  cannot  be  doubted,  as  it 
appears  to  me,  that  scientific  genius,  even  in  biology,  is  suffi- 
ciently developed  and  emancipated  to  enable  us  to  conceive  after 
the  laws  of  biology  of  certain  organizations  which  differ  notably 
from  all  those  which  we  know,  and  which  shall  be  incontestably 
superior  to  them  in  the  point  of  view  in  question,  without  these 
ameliorations  being  inevitably  compensated  in  other  respects  by 
equivalent  imperfections."*  The  common  answer  to  these  ob- 
jections, that  the  evils  referred  to  are  the  incidental  results  of 
general  laws  good  in  themselves,  we  cannot  hold  to  be  adequate  ; 
for  we  have  seen  that  God  can  arrange  his  general  laws  so  as  to 
make  one  law  counteract  the  evil  that  would  flow  from  the 
unbending  operation  of  another.  As  Hume  remarks,  "  A  being 
who  knows  the  secret  springs  of  the  universe  might  easily,  by 
particular  volitions,  turn  all  these  accidents  to  the  good  of  man- 
kind.'' We  must  regard  these  supposed  evils  as  following  from 
the  arrangements  of  heaven,  just  as  much  as  the  physical  bless- 
ings. We  must  see  God  in  the  hurricane  as  well  as  in  the 
gentler  breezes — in  the  floods  as  well  as  the  softer  showers — 
in  the  scorching  drought  as  well  as  in  the  genial  heat — in 
disease  as  well  as  in  health.  So  far  as  these  evils  are  merely 
physical,  or  bear  a  physical  aspect,  or  are  connected  with  other 
physical  phenomena,  they  are  not  evils.  In  itself,  and  apart 
from  its  relation  to  man,  on  whom  it  may  inflict  pain,  or  whose 
plans  it  may  disturb,  the  tempest  is  no  more  an  evil  than  the 
*  Philosophic  Positive,  vol.  iii.  p.  463. 


EXPLAINED  BY  THE  SINFULNESS  OF  MAN.  259 

calm.  It  is  simply  in  their  reference  to  man,  that  these  parts 
of  nature  become  apparent  evils.  Now,  we  think  that  we  may- 
discover  in  the  nature  and  character  of  man,  in  reference  to 
whom  it  is  supposed  that  they  are  evils,  the  ground  on  which 
the  infliction  of  them  proceeds.  Such  is  the  character  of  man, 
that  it  is  needful  to  have  the  storm  as  well  as  the  zephyr — the 
drought  and  the  deluge  as  well  as  the  beneficent  shower — sudden 
failures  in  our  bodily  organism  and  lengthened  disease,  as  well 
as  health  and  the  buoyant  flow  of  the  animal  spirits.  Does  it 
not  appear  as  if  the  mysteries  of  the  physical  government  of 
God  could  be  all  explained  by  their  reference  to  the  character  of 
man  ?  We  wonder  that  there  should  be  such  sudden  calamities 
and  judicial  inflictions.  But  the  true  wonder  would  be,  the 
character  of  man  being  thus  degraded,  were  God  to  rule  this 
world  as  if  it  had  never  fallen.  All  these  occurrences  seem 
strange  and  mysterious,  only  on  the  supposition  that  man  is 
spotlessly  pure.  Take  with  us  the  fact  that  man  has  rebelled 
against  God,  and  these  difficulties  instantly  vanish. 

Two  evils  exist  in  this  world — the  one  physical  and  the  other 
moral — the  evil  of  pain  and  the  evil  of  sin.  We  discover  that 
these  are  evils  by  the  very  constitution  of  the  human  mind, 
which  shrinks  from  pain  and  condemns  transgression.  Of  these 
two,  physical  evil  is  the  one  which  seems  to  bear  hardest  against 
the  Divine  government.  Not  that  it  is  the  worse  of  the  two, 
but  it  is  the  one  with  which  God  has  the  most  immediate  con- 
cern. The  blame  of  the  moral  evil  may  undoubtedly  be  cast  on 
the  individual  who  commits  it.  To  deny  this,  is  to  deny  the 
possibility  of  free  agency  and  responsibility  on  the  part  of  the 
creature.  It  is  surely  possible  for  God  to  give  free  agency  to  an 
intelligent  creature,  such  free  agency  as  implies  accountability  ; 
and  the  creature,  so  endowed,  cannot  throw  the  blame  of  the  sin 
he  commits  upon  another.  But  the  infliction  of  pain  proceeds 
directly  from  God  ;  and  the  blame  of  it,  if  blame  there  be,  must 
lie  upon  him.  He  who  would  justify  the  ways  of  God  to  man, 
must  be  careful  to  defend  the  Divine  government  at  the  point 
at  which  suffering  is  inflicted. 

While  led  to  regard  both  pain  and  sin  as  evils,  the  mind 
looks  upon  them  in  two  very  different  lights.  It  avoids  the  one, 
but  it  pronounces  its  condemnation  upon  the  other.  Not  only 
so,  but  it  announces  in  a  way  not  to  be  misunderstood,  that 


260  THE  MYSTERIES  OF  PROVIDENCE 

physical  evil  is  the  natural  consequence  and  punishment  of 
moral  evil.  The  guilty  man  stands  in  constant  fear  of  a  penalty 
to  follow ;  and  the  conscience  approves  of  appropriate  punish- 
ment being  inflicted  on  sin.  Such  is  the  very  constitution  of 
man's  nature.  It  not  only  declares  sin  to  be  an  evil,  and  pain 
to  be  an  evil,  but  declares  that  the  one  is  the  proper  punish- 
ment of  the  other.  It  seems,  then,  as  if  we  could  free  ourselves 
from  many  of  the  difficulties  connected  with  the  infliction  of 
pain,  provided  we  could  refer  it  to  moral  evil  as  its  source. 
This,  we  are  aware,  is  widely  different  from  the  view  adopted  by 
the  superficial  thinkers  of  this  age.  They  justify  the  infliction 
of  suffering  on  the  ground  of  its  ultimately  producing  a  greater 
amount  of  happiness ;  and  they  speak  as  if  happiness  were  the 
only  good,  and  pain  the  only  evil.  But  certainly  this  is  not  the 
doctrine  sanctioned  by  the  intuitive  and  fundamental  principles 
of  man's  nature.  Place  man  in  a  position  in'  which  he  must 
choose  between  sin  and  pain,  and  the  conscience  will  at  once 
announce  that  the  latter  should  be  the  alternative  adopted. 
The  mind,  in  short,  declares  that  there  is  a  greater  good  than 
mere  happiness,  and  a  greater  evil  than  pain,  and  that  suffering 
is  the  appropriate  punishment  of  transgression. 

The  spirit  of  the  present  age  is  much  opposed  to  everything 
punitive.  It  is  the  natural  recoil  of  the  human  mind  from  the 
barbarities,  the  cruelty,  and  revenge  of  former  generations.  The 
general  rule  is  now  laid  down,  that  human  punishment  ought 
to  be  strictly  reformatory,  and  have  in  view  solely  the  welfare  of 
the  individual  and  of  society.  We  are  not  disposed  to  cavil  at 
this  principle.  We  tremble  at  the  idea  of  man  being  made  the 
avenger  of  the  laws  of  the  Governor  of  the  universe.  The 
magistrate  has  no  doubt  a  delegated  power  from  heaven ;  but  it 
were  as  safe,  to  say  the  least  of  it,  in  him  to  confine  its  exercise 
within  the  limits  prescribed  by  the  principle  that  the  reforma- 
tion of  society  should  be  his  end  and  aim.  But  there  is  a  pre- 
vious inquiry,  Is  it  allowable  that  the  magistrate  punish  except 
when  punishment  is  deserved?  We  hold  it  to  be  demonstrable, 
that  he  is  not  at  liberty  to  punish,  unless  a  crime  meriting  pun- 
ishment has  been  committed.  He  is  not  permitted,  it  is  mani- 
fest, to  inflict  pain  merely  for  the  good  of  society ;  to  visit,  for 
example,  with  imprisonment  or  death,  an  individual  who  has 
innocently  committed  an  injurious  act.     True  it  is  that  he  does 


EXPLAINED  BY  THE  SINFULNESS  OF  MAN.  261 

not  punish  sin,  simply  as  sin,  (for  this  is  the  prerogative  of 
God,)  but  rather  because  it  has  inflicted  injury  on  society  ;  but 
it  is  also  true,  that  he  dare  not  impose  penalties,  except  where 
guilt  has  been  contracted.  Thus,  in  the  very  power  delegated 
to,  and  exercised  by,  the  magistrate,  we  discover  traces  of  the 
connexion  between  sin  and  suffering. 

But  because  punishment,  inflicted  by  man,  aims  at  reforma- 
tion, it  does  not  therefore  follow  that  this  must  be  the  sole  end 
of  punishment  inflicted  by  God.  God  may  not  choose  to  dele- 
gate to  man  a  power  of  punishment  which  he  has  no  right  of 
himself  to  inflict,  and  which  he  would  most  certainly  abuse  were 
it  intrusted  to  him.  But  as  God  has  this  power — and  our  moral 
nature  justifies  him  in  exercising  it — he  may  righteously  use  it 
in  his  holy  government.  It  is  only  on  the  supposition  that  he 
does  use  it,  that  we  can  justify  to  our  moral  nature  the  dealings 
of  God  in  inflicting  such  wide-spread  misery  upon  mankind. 
Without  taking  this  circumstance  into  account,  we  feel  as  if  we 
could  not  justify  the  method  of  God's  government  to  the  nature 
which  he  has  implanted  within  us. 

We  justify  the  infliction  of  suffering  upon  man,  on  the  ground 
of  the  existence  of  moral  evil ;  and  we  throw  the  blame  of  the 
moral  evil  upon  the  individual  who  commits  it.  But  does  some 
one  say,  that  our  feelings  rise  against  this  view  ? — we  reply,  that 
there  are  more  solid  principles  in  the  human  mind  than  mere 
floating  feelings — and  it  is  to  these  that  we  appeal.  Is  it  in- 
sisted that  we  justify  all  this  to  the  understanding  ? — we  answer, 
that  there  are  questions  involved  which  do  not  come  directly 
under  the  cognizance  of  the  understanding,  any  more  than 
questions  of  the  beauty  and  deformity  of  objects.  We  reckon 
it  enough  to  justify  the  moral  character  of  God  to  that  moral 
faculty  which  God  has  placed  in  our  breast,  and  placed  there 
for  this  very  purpose,  that  it  may  judge  of  actions  and  of 
character. 

That  faculty  now  falls  under  our  notice. 


METHOD  OF  THE  DIVINE  GOVERNMENT. 


BOOK  THIRD. 


PARTICULAR  INQUIRY  INTO  THE  PRINCIPLES  OF  THE  HUMAN 
MIND  THROUGH  WHICH  GOD  GOVERNS  MANKIND. 

We  are  now  to  turn  from  the  world  without  to  the  world  within 
us — truly  the  larger  and  more  wonderful  of  the  two  ;  for  every 
one  of  man's  thoughts  is  in  its  very  nature  more  elevated  than 
the  most  exalted  of  material  objects,  and  his  imaginations  reach 
infinitely  farther  than  the  bodily  eye,  assisted  by  the  telescope, 
can  range.  This  latter  world,  however,  submits  itself  to  exami- 
nation more  reluctantly  than  the  other.  When  we  would  catch 
the  mind  in  any  one  state  of  thought  or  feeling,  we  find  that  in 
the  very  act  we  have  so  far  modified  the  thought  and  feeling, 
and  that,  Proteus-like,  they  change  their  form  when  we  are 
about  to  seize  them.  Its  living  feelings  die  under  our  hand  as 
we  would  dissect  them.  In  order  to  detect  its  workings,  we 
must  use  greater  skill  than  Huber  did  when,  after  trying  device 
upon  device,  he  succeeded  at  last  in  finding  the  way  in  which 
bees  construct  their  ingenious  work.  We  cannot  at  every  time 
invert  our  eye  and  look  into  this  deep.  It  cannot  be  inspected 
when  it  is  muddy  with  earthly  ingredients,  and  chafed  with 
passion.  Still,  there  are  times  when,  calm  and  serene  as  a  placid 
lake  in  summer,  we  can  look  far  down  into  its  depths,  and 
behold  its  thronging  life  and  exhaustless  treasures.  "  Its  facts," 
says  Cousin,  "  are  complicated,  fugitive,  obscure,  and  all  but 
beyond  the  power  of  apprehension  from  their  deep  seat  in  the 
mind ;"  but  he  adds,  "  the  consciousness  which  is  applied  to 
them  is  an  instrument  of  extreme  delicacy — it  is  a  microscope 


THE  WILL,  OR  THE  OPTATIVE  FACULTY.  263 


applied  to  things  infinitely  small."  By  the  help,  too,  of  the 
memory,  we  can  recall,  with  the  view  of  inspecting  them,  the 
thoughts  and  feelings  which  passed  through  the  mind  even  when 
most  agitated.  Nor  is  it  to  be  forgotten  that,  to  some  extent, 
we  can  experiment  upon  the  mind,  and  present  objects  fitted  to 
call  its  powers  into  operation,  and  exhibit  them  in  exercise. 
There  is  a  yet  farther  means  of  acquiring  a  knowledge  of  mind, 
and  this  is,  by  means  of  the  expression  of  man's  cogitations  and 
sentiments  in  his  words  and  writings.  The  quiet  conversation 
of  a  friend,  and  the  burning  words  of  the  orator  and  poet,  alike 
reveal  what  is  passing  within. 

In  a  Treatise  like  this,  however,  it  is  not  needful  to  investigate 
the  human  mind  any  farther  than  may  be  requisite  to  discover 
its  relation  to  God,  the  Governor  of  the  universe.  We  do  not 
require  to  take  a  survey  of  all  its  powers,  nor  to  enter  upon  any 
subtle  or  minute  analysis  of  them.  Our  attention  is  to  be  very 
much  confined  to  those  principles  through  which  God  governs, 
ir  may  be  supposed  to  govern,  mankind.  As  in  the  last  book 
we  took  a  survey  of  the  works  and  laws  of  God  in  their  refer- 
ence to  man,  we  are  now  to  contemplate  the  human  mind  in  its 
relation  to  God  as  its  Governor. 


CHAPTER  I. 


man's  original  and  indestructible  moral  nature. 


SECT.  I. — THE  WILL,  OR  THE  OPTATIVE  FACULTY — CONDITIONS 

OF  RESPONSIBILITY. 

It  is  needful,  at  this  place,  to  draw  out  some  sort  of  chart  of 
the  various  departments  of  the  mind.  The  aim  of  all  such 
classifications  should  be  to  bring  out  to  view  the  leading  attri- 
butes of  the  soul.  The  following  may  serve  our  present  purpose. 
There  are — 

I.  The  Simple  Cognitive  Faculties,  by  which  we  attain  the 
knowledge  of  individual  objects  in  the  concrete,  as,  (1.)  Sense- 
Perception,  by  which  we  know  material  substances  in  certain 


264  THE  WILL,  OR  THE  OPTATIVE  FACULTY. 


modes,  or  in  the  exercise  of  certain  qualities ;  and,  (2.)  Self- 
consciousness,  by  which  we  know  self  in  certain  states. 

II.  The  Retentive  and  Reproductive  Powers,  as,  (1.) 
Memory,  which  recalls  what  has  been  before  the  mind,  with  a 
belief  that  it  has  been  before  the  mind  in  time  past ;  (2.) 
Imagination,  which  puts  what  has  been  before  the  mind  in  new 
and  non-existing  forms.  Both  of  these  possess  an  Imaging  or 
Pictorial  power.  When  this  might  fail,  we  have,  (3.)  The 
Symbolic  power,  which  enables  us  to  represent  objects  by  signs. 

Above  these  presentative  and  representative  powers,  we  have, 

III.  The  Correlative  Faculties,  discovering  such  relations 
as  that,  (1.)  Of  whole  and  parts;  (2.)  Of  sameness  and  differ- 
ence, in  respect  ot  such  qualities  as  space,  time,  quantity,  and 
active  property  ;  and,  (3.)  Of  cause  and  effect* 

IV.  The  Moral  Faculty,  determining  in  regard  to  certain 
mental  states,  that  they  are  right  or  wrong. 

Associated  with  the  exercise  of  these  powers,  we  have, 

V.  The  Emotions,  attaching  us  to  certain  objects,  and  with- 
drawing us  from  others. 

VI.  The  Will  or  Optative  Power,  choosing  or  rejecting 
among  the  objects  presented  to  the  mind. 

It  should  be  added,  that  there  are  laws  of  association  deter- 
mining the  order  of  succession  of  the  states  produced  by  these 
various  powers. 

In  allotting  a  separate  place  to  each  of  these  powers,  we  do 
not  mean  to  affirm  that  they  act  separately.  The  exercises  of 
several  of  them  are  often  mingled  in  one  mental  act,  and  some 
of  thi'm,  such  as  self-consciousness,  the  emotions,  and  the  will, 
never  act  alone.  Still  it  is  needful  to  make  some  such  classifi- 
cation, if  we  would  exhibit  the  peculiarities  of  the  human  mind. 
We  do  not  pretend  that  the  above  is  a  complete  manifestation 
of  all  the  attributes  of  the  mind,  but  we  believe  it  to  be  impos- 
sible, when  we  look  to  the  full  revelations  of  consciousness,  to 
resolve  any  one  of  these  into  any  of  the  others,  or  into  all  the 
others.  Any  proposed  reduction  of  them  into  one  another,  or 
into  simpler  elements,  may  be  shewn  to  be  delusive,  and  to 
derive  its  plausibility  not  from  explaining,  but  overlooking  the 
peculiarities  of  the  faculty.    In  this  Book  we  have  to  do  mainly 

*  See  in  connexion  with  this  Scheme  of  the  Intellectual  Faculties,  a  Scheme  of 
Intuitive  Intellectual  Principles  considered  psychologically  in  Appendix  VI. 


THE  WILL,  OK  THE  OPTATIVE  FACULTY.         265 


with  the  Emotions,  the  Will,  and  the  Conscience,  as  constitut- 
ing what  may  be  appropriately  called  the  Motive  Powers  of  the 
mind.  Of  these  three,  we  are  required  to  consider  in  a  special 
manner,  merely  the  two  last,  which  are  truly  the  moral  powers 
of  humanity. 

These  three,  the  Emotions,  the  Will,  the  Conscience,  are  all 
included  in  the  popular  word  "  heart,"  and  in  the  still  looser 
phrase  "  feeling."  Much  confusion  has  arisen  from  not  distin- 
guishing between  these  different  powers,  and  from  designating 
them  all  by  one  name,  not  inexpressive,  but  still  very  indefinite. 
How  unsatisfactory  the  old  theological  controversy,  as  to  whether 
faith  is  an  exercise  of  the  head  or  heart,  when  the  precise  boun- 
dary line  between  the  head  and  heart  is  not  drawn,  when  what  is 
embraced  in  the  heart  is  not  unfolded,  nor  the  various  affections 
denoted  by  the  wrord  feeling  carefully  distinguished  ?*  We 
have  always  felt  that  there  was  a  great  vagueness  in  the  con- 
troversy stirred  up  by  Jacobi,  when,  in  order  to  save  philosophy 
from  the  rigid  intellectualism  of  Kant,  he  called  in  Feeling  or 
Faith,  but  without  giving  an  inductive  exposition  of  its  elements, 
and  of  the  several  laws  of  each.  With  a  real  difference  of 
opinion,  there  is  a  vast  amount  of  logomachy  in  the  dispute  of 
the  present  day,  as  to  whether  religion  is  a  matter  of  the  intellect 
or  of  the  feelings.  When  physical  investigators  appeal  to  a 
law,  they  are  expected  to  be  prepared  to  specify  its  nature  ;  and 
it  is  time  that  a  similar  rule  were  laid  down  for  mental  inquiry, 
and  for  theology,  so  far  as  it  makes  use  of  the  facts  of  our  moral 
nature.  We  are  persuaded  that  no  one  can  reason  clearly  or 
satisfactorily  about  the  heart  or  feeling,  who  does  not  recognise 
at  least  three  distinct  elements  as  contained  in  it,  the  conscience, 
the  will  proper,  and  the  emotions.  He  who  would  class  all 
these  in  one  generic  word,  will  find  himself  in  metaphysical, 
ethical,  and  theological  speculation,  often  predicating  of  one  of 
them,  say  the  feelings,  what  is  true  only  of  another,  say  the 
will,  or  of  all  what  is  true  only  of  one,  say  the  conscience. 
Thus  when  we  affirm  that  desire  is  an  affection  of  the  heart,  we 
must  be  careful  to  explain  whether  we  mean  the  emotions  or 

*  Saving  faith  seems  to  be,  the  consent  of  the  will  to  the  assent  of  the  under- 
standing, and  commonly  (not  always,  because  of  the  nature  of  the  objects  con- 
templated, accompanied  by  emotion.  If  this  view  be  correct,  it  is  the  consent  of 
the  will,  which  constitutes  the  true  difference  between  speculative  and  true  faith. 


266         THE  WILL,  OR  THE  OPTATIVE  FACULTY. 

the  will.  When  we  talk  of  moral  good  being  seated  in  the 
heart,  we  should  distinguish  between  what  we  refer  to  feeling, 
what  to  volition,  what  to  the  decisions  of  the  moral  faculty. 
As  to  faith,  the  belief  in  the  unseen,  the  absent,  nay,  at  times, 
the  incomprehensible,  it  is  fully  as  much  a  constituent  of  the  in- 
telligence, as  of  the  heart  or  affections. 

In  taking  up  the  subject  of  the  Will,  we  regard  it  as  of  great 
moment,  that  it  should  be  looked  upon  as  a  distinct  power  or 
energy  of  the  mind.  Not  that  we  mean  to  represent  it  as  exer- 
cised apart  from  all  other  faculties  ;  on  the  contrary,  it  blends 
itself  with  every  other  power.  It  associates  itself  with  our 
intellectual  decisions  on  the  one  hand,  and  our  emotional  attach- 
ments on  the  other,  but  contains  an  important  element  which 
cannot  be  resolved  into  either  the  one  or  other,  or  into  both 
combined.  The  other  powers,  such  as  the  sensibility,  the 
reason,  the  conscience,  may  influence  the  will,  but  they  cannot 
constitute  it,  nor  yield  its  peculiar  workings.  We  have  only 
by  consciousness  to  look  into  our  souls  as  the  will  is  working, 
to  discover  a  power,  which  though  intimately  connected  with 
the  other  attributes  of  mind,  even  as  they  are  closely  related  to 
each  other,  does  yet  stand  out  distinctly  from  them,  with  its 
peculiar  functions  and  its  own  province.  We  hold  that  there 
cannot  be  an  undertaking  more  perilous  to  the  best  interests  of 
philosophy  and  humanity,  than  the  attempt  to  resolve  the  will 
into  anything  inferior  to  itself.  In  particular  it  may  be,  and 
should  be  distinguished  from  that  with  which  it  has  been  so 
often  confounded,  the  emotional  part  of  man's  nature. 

The  following  seem  to  be  the  characteristics  of  the  Emotions. 
First,  there  is  an  attachment  to,  or  a  repugnance  from,  certain 
objects  contemplated, — there  is  a  drawing  towards  them  when 
under  one  kind  of  feeling,  and  a  drawing  from  them,  when  under 
another  description  of  feeling.  Under  the  influence  of  hope, 
for  instance,  we,  as  it  were,  stretch  forth  our  hands  towards  the 
object,  and  in  fear  we  shrink  from  it.  Secondly,  the  mind, 
when  under  feelings,  is  in  an  excited  or  moved  state — hence 
the  name,  emotions.  This  excitement  is  characterized  by  the 
thoughts  running  with  great  rapidity  in  a  particular  train  or 
channel,  and  by  a  marked  influence  on  certain  bodily  organs. 
These  marks  are  to  be  found  in  all  the  common  emotions,  such 
as  joy  and  grief,  hope  and  fear,  good  will  and  hatred. 


THE  WILL,  OK  THE  OPTATIVE  FACULTY.         '267 


The  essence  of  Will,  on  the  other  hand,  is  choice,  or  the  opposite 
of  choice,  rejection.  It  takes  various  forms,  and  may  have  degrees 
of  intensity  ;  if  the  object  be  present  it  is  adoption  or  consent, 
and  if  the  object  be  absent  it  is  wish  or  desire,  and  when  it  leads 
to  action  it  is  volition,  but  under  all  its  forms  it  is  characterized 
by  active  selection  or  rejection.  This  is  an  element  not  found 
in  emotion.  There  may  be  lively  attachments  and  excitement, 
when  there  is  no  choice.  Nor,  on  the  other  hand,  are  the  pecu- 
liarities of  emotion  necessarily  present  in  the  exercises  of  the 
voluntary  power  of  the  mind.  We  may  choose  objects  to  which 
we  are  not  instinctively  attached,  nay,  to  which  we  have  rather 
a  natural  feeling  of  aversion.  The  will  is  often  in  its  highest 
exercise  when  it  is  resisting  the  tide  of  emotional  impulse. 
Nor  is  the  mind  necessarily  in  a  moved  state  when  it  forms  its 
resolutions ;  on  the  contrary,  the  common  volitions,  as  when  we 
will  to  move  the  members  of  our  body,  are  unattended  by  any 
excitement,  and  our  strongest  determinations  are  often  taken  in 
our  calmest  moods.* 

We  think  it  high  time  that  writers  on  mental  science  should 
be  prepared  to  admit  that  there  is  a  separate  class  of  mental 
affections,  which  we  may  call  by  the  generic  term  Will,  or,  as 
we  would  prefer,  the  Optative  states  of  mind.  These  are  very 
numerous,  and  differ  from  each  other  in  degree  and  in  certain 
minor  qualities,  but  they  all  agree  in  this,  that  they  contain 
choice  or  rejection.     In  this  class  we  include  not  only  volition 

*  Our  older  divines  and  moralists  were  accustomed  to  speak  of  the  will  as  a 
separate  attribute  of  the  mind.  In  this  country  and  in  France,  later  metaphy- 
sicians, in  the  natural  recoil  from  the  excessive  multiplication  of  original  principles, 
have  gone  to  a  worse  extreme  than  that  which  they  sought  to  avoid,  and  have 
laboured  to  resolve  the  will  into  mere  sensibility.  In  the  writings  of  the  schools  of 
Condillac,  of  Brown,  and  of  James  Mill,  we  find  wish  and  desire  represented  as 
emotions,  and  volition  as  the  prevailing  desire.  It  is  to  the  credit  of  the  speculators 
of  Germany,  that  they  have  commonly  given  a  lofty  sphere  to  the  will,  though  in 
some  cases  they  have  confounded  it  with  the  activity  of  the  mind.  We  have  now 
in  France  and  in  this  country  a  happy  reaction  against  the  over-refinement  of 
analysis  which  explains  away  a  principle  by  overlooking  its  characteristic  quality. 
Cousin,  Jouffroy,  and  others  in  France, — Chalmers,  Payne,  and  others  in  Britain, 
while  they  still  speak  of  desire  as  a  mere  emotion,  take  pains  to  shew  that  volition 
is  something  more  than  desire,  and  remove  it  out  of  the  category  of  the  common 
emotions  altogether.  We  are  not  satisfied  that  they  have  drawn  the  line  of  dis- 
tinction at  the  proper  place,  we  are  not  convinced  that  desire  is  a  mere  emotion, 
or  that  the  all  important  distinction  is  between  desire  and  volition ;  still  it  is 
pleasant  to  find  these  eminent  men  striving  to  save  morality,  by  representing  the 
will  as  an  unresolvable  and  independent  potency. 


"268         THE  WILL,  OR  THE  OPTATIVE  FACULTY. 

or  the  determination  to  act,  but  preference,  adoption,  if  the 
object  be  present,  and  wish,  desire,  if  it  be  absent. 

Take,  for  instance,  a  wish,  the  earnest  wish  that  this  dear 
friend  at  present  in  ill  health  may  recover.  Every  one  will 
admit  that  there  is  more  here  than  mere  intellect.  No  doubt 
there  is  intelligence,  the  conception  of  the  friend  in  certain  cir- 
cumstances, and  the  possibility  of  his  being  in  other  circum- 
stances ;  but  it  will  be  readily  acknowledged  that  there  is  more 
than  mere  intellectual  conception.  We  proceed  a  step  farther, 
and  affirm  that  there  is  more  than  mere  emotion,  than  a  mere 
glow  of  heart,  or  feeling  of  delight  and  attachment.  There  is 
all  this,  but  there  is  something  more,  which  the  glow  or  the 
attachment  may  be  fitted  to  produce,  (in  a  mind  capable  oj 
desire,)  but  which  it  cannot  constitute.  Just  as  the  intellectual 
conception  of  our  friend  is  fitted  to  raise  the  emotion,  which, 
however,  is  something  more  than  the  intellectual  conception,  so 
the  emotion  is  fitted  to  raise  the  desire,  which  desire,  however, 
contains  an  element  not  in  the  emotion.  It  is  not  difficult  to 
conceive  of  a  mind  having  the  emotion,  and  yet  incapable  of  the 
desire.  Just  as  it  is  possible  to  conceive  of  a  being  with  intel- 
lect without  emotions,  so  it  is  possible  to  conceive  of  a  being 
possessed  of  sensibility  without  being  able  to  form  a  volition  or 
even  a  wish.  The  nerves  of  motion  in  the  bodily  frame  do  not 
differ  more  from  the  muscles  of  mere  sensation,  than  do  the 
volitions  and  desires  of  the  mind  from  the  mere  feelings  of  delight, 
interest,  and  attachment,  experienced  in  what  are  called  emotions. 

Later  mental  inquirers  are  generally  disposed  to  admit  that 
the  volition,  the  positive  determination  to  take  a  particular  step, 
the  resolution,  for  instance,  to  give  a  sum  of  money  to  take  our 
friend  to  a  warmer  climate  for  the  restoration  of  his  health,  is 
more  than  a  mere  emotion.  But  if  we  are  thus  to  constitute  a 
separate  attribute  to  which  to  refer  volition,  it  is  worthy  of  being 
inquired  whether  we  should  not  arrange  under  the  same  head, 
wishes,  desires,  and  the  cognate  states,  as  being  more  closely 
allied  in  their  nature  to  volition  than  to  the  common  emotions. 
Wherever  there  is  wish,  we  hold  that  there  is  more  than  mere 
emotion — more  than  a  mere  receptive  state  of  the  soul ;  there  is 
a  voluntary  exercise  of  the  mind.  Whenever  we  go  beyond  the 
indicative  or  the  subjunctive  to  the  optative  mood,  we  come  into 
the  region  of  a  higher  attribute.    As  long  as  we  dwell  with  pain 


THE  "WILL,  OR  THE  OPTATIVE  FACULTY.  2G9 

on  the  contemplation  of  our  friend  in  distress,  or  with  pleasure 
on  his  anticipated  recovery,  there  is  evidently  nothing  but  emo- 
tion. But  we  take  a  farther  step,  a  most  important  step — a  step 
which,  when  we  take  it,  demonstrates  that  we  are  higher  in  the 
scale  of  being — when  we  positively  wish  that  our  friend  may 
recover. 

It  is  the  will  which  determines  what  is  to  be  preferred  or 
rejected.  Doubtless  the  other  powers  of  the  mind  must  furnish 
the  objects.  The  physical  or  mental  sensibility  must  announce 
what  is  painful  and  what  is  pleasurable  ;  the  conscience  declares 
what  is  morally  right,  and  what  is  morally  wrong ;  the  reason 
may  proclaim  what  is  true,  and  what  is  false  ;  but  it  is  not  the 
province  of  one  or  all  these  to  make  the  choice.  By  the  sensi- 
bility, the  mind  feels  pleasure  and  pain  ;  but  it  is  another  power 
which  chooses  the  former,  and  avoids  the  latter.  So  far  as  the 
true  is  preferred  to  the  false,  or  the  right  to  the  wrong,  or  the 
pleasurable  to  the  right,  it  is  by  the  exercise,  not  of  the  reason, 
or  the  conscience,  or  the  sensibility,  but  of  the  will.  Nor  is  it 
saying  anything  to  the  point  to  declare,  that  the  will  always 
chooses  the  greatest  good  ;  for  it  is  the  will  that  determines  it, 
in  this  sense,  to  be  good,  and  the  greatest  good.  The  will,  no 
doubt,  does  prefer  the  pleasurable  in  itself,  to  the  painful,  but  it 
is  because  it  wills  to  do  so.  It  may  prefer,  as  it  ought,  the 
morally  right  to  the  pleasurable ;  but  it  is  equally  possible  it 
may  prefer  the  pleasant  to  the  morally  right ;  and  whichever  of 
these  courses  it  pursues,  it  is  in  the  sovereign  exercise  of  its 
own  choice. 

We  hold  the  will  to  be  a  general  potency  or  attribute  of  mind, 
and  its  operations  manifested  under  various  forms.  When  the 
object  is  present,  it  may  adopt  it :  when  there  are  two  contend- 
ing objects  present,  it  may  prefer  one  to  the  other :  when  the 
object  mental  or  material  is  absent,  it  may  wish  it  or  desire  it, 
or  resolve  to  take  available  steps  to  obtain  it.  When  inconsis- 
tent objects  are  contemplated,  and  the  mind  is  inclined  to  choose 
both,  there  may  for  a  time  be  clashing  or  contest.  When  there 
is  no  collision  of  desires,  or  when  the  object  of  one  of  the  con- 
tending desires  is  declared  to  be  better  or  best,  it  chooses  the 
object,  and  if  present  it  seizes  it,  or  if  absent  and  attainable,  it 
determines  to  take  the  steps  necessary  to  secure  it,  which  con- 
summating act  is  commonly  called  volition.     According  to  this 


270  THE  WILL,  OR  THE  OPTATIVE  FACULTY 

representation  there  may  often  be  a  collision  of  desires,  often  the 
collision  of  volition  with  inconsistent  desires.  There  is  therefore 
a  real  distinction  between  desire  and  volition  ;  there  may  be  a 
difference  of  degree,  and  there  is  always  a  difference  in  this, 
that  volition  goes  on  to  action.  But  still  we  are  persuaded  that 
it  is  the  same  attribute  of  mind  which  says  of  this  object,  I 
adopt  it,  I  prefer  it,  I  wish  it,  I  desire  it,  and  which  says,  on 
there  being  no  competing  object,  or  no  object  esteemed  equal  to 
it,  I  determine  to  secure  it. 

It  is  of  the  utmost  moment,  even  in  the  study  of  mind  as  a 
branch  of  science,  to  distinguish  between  the  emotions  and  the 
will.  We  cannot  comprehend  man's  nature  and  constitution, 
without  conceiving  of  him  as  endowed  with  more  than  a  mere 
emotional  impressibility  or  receptive  sensibility.  True,  we  ad- 
mire the  loveliness  of  man's  emotional  nature  more  than  we 
admire  the  loveliest  of  nature's  loveliest  regions,  (indeed,  philo- 
sophical analysis  informs  us,  that  external  beauty  is  to  some 
extent  a  mere  transference  of  the  inward  feeling  to  the  physical 
world.)  The  play  of  feeling  has  to  us  an  intenser  interest 
than  the  blowing  of  the  breeze,  or  the  rush  of  waters ;  and 
the  moving  of  man's  emotional  nature,  more  than  even  the 
deep  waving  of  grain  in  summer,  is  indicative  to  us  of  riches 
and  fruitfulness.  Still,  we  stand  up  for  the  existence  of  a  higher 
faculty,  which,  no  doubt,  proceeds  upon  emotion,  but  uses  it  all 
the  while  merely  to  rise  to  the  exercise  of  its  own  independent 
functions. 

But  it  is  in  ethical,  more  than  in  psychological  inquiry,  that 
the  essential  importance  of  this  distinction  becomes  apparent. 
It  may  be  doubted  whether  a  person  possessed  of  mere  emotion 
could,  in  any  circumstances,  be  regarded  as  responsible.  It  is 
when  the  element  of  the  will,  the  optative,  the  power  of  choice, 
comes  under  the  view,  that  we  at  once  declare  man  to  be  a 
moral  and  responsible  agent. 

This  may  be  the  proper  place  for  pointing  out  what  we  con- 
ceive to  be  the  conditions  of  responsibility. 

The  fact  that  man's  mind  is  self-acting,  and,  in  particular, 
that  the  will  is  self-acting — has  its  power  or  law  in  itself — 
is  one  of  the  conditions  of  responsibility.  The  other  two  condi- 
tions of  responsibility  seem  to  be  conscience  and  intelligence. 
There  must  be  conscience  to  distinguish   between  light  and 


CAUSAL  CONNEXION  OF  GOD  WITH  HIS  WORKS.  271 

wrong,  and  announce  to  us  which  is  the  one  and  which  is  the 
other.  There  must  also  be  such  an  amount  of  intelligence  as  to 
enable  the  mind  to  comprehend  the  true  state  of  the  case,  and 
to  separate,  in  the  complex  acts  of  life,  that  which  is  moral  from 
that  which  is  indifferent.  These  three,  then,  seem  to  be  the 
essential  elements  or  conditions  of  responsibility.  Every  human 
being,  in  a  sane  state  of  mind,  is  in  possession  of  all  the  three. 
The  maniac,  in  some  cases,  has  lost  the  first,  and  has  no  proper 
power  of  will.  The  idiot,  and  in  some  cases  the  maniac,  is 
without  the  third,  or  the  power  of  discovering  what  is  really 
embraced  in  a  given  phenomenon.  Without  the  one  or  other 
of  these  necessary  adjuncts,  there  is  no  room  for  the  right  exer- 
cise of  the  second — that  is,  the  conscience  ;  and  the  party  there- 
fore is  not  responsible.  In  the  case  of  the  maniac,  as  soon  as 
intelligence  and  the  power  of  will  are  restored,  the  conscience, 
which  is  the  most  indestructible  faculty  in  the  human  soul,  is 
in  circumstances  to  renew  its  proper  operation. 

SECT.  II. — FREEDOM  AND  RESPONSIBILITY  COMPATIBLE  WITH  THE 
CAUSAL  CONNEXION  OF  GOD  WITH  HIS  WORKS. 

(1.)  There  is  an  essential  freedtm  implied  in  every  proper 
exercise  of  the  will.  For  the  proof  of  this  we  appeal  to  the 
consciousness,  the  universal  consciousness.  The  fact  here  re- 
vealed by  the  consciousness  is  not  to  be  set  aside  by  a  mere  in- 
ferential logic.  It  is  the  business  of  philosophy  fully  to  unfold 
this  fact,  not  forgetting,  at  the  same  time,  that  it  may  be  limited 
by  at  least  one  other,  and  that  an  equally  well  established  fact. 
Necessarians,  as  it  appear?  to  t.s,  have  commonly  either  denied 
the  fact,  or  narrowed  zt  too  much,  while  Libertarians  have 
overlooked  another  and  an  equally  important  fact,  by  which  the 
first  is  limited. 

When  it  is  said  that  the  will  is  free,  there  is  more  declared 
than  simply  that  we  can  do  ^  hat  we  please.  It  is  implied,  farther, 
that  the  choice  lies  within  the  voluntary  power  of  the  mind,  and 
that  we  could  have  willei  otherwise  if  we  had  pleased.  The 
mind  has  not  only  the  power  of  action,  but  the  anterior,  and  far 
more  important  power  of  choice.  The  freedom  of  the  mind  does 
not  consist  in  the  effect  following  the  volition,  as,  for  instance, 
in  the  movement  of  the  arm  following  the  will  to  move  it,  but  in 


272  FREEDOM,  ETC.,  COMPATIBLE  WITH  THE 

the  power  of  the  mind  to  form  the  volition  in  the  exercise  of  its 
voluntary  functions.  That  man  has  not  scanned  the  full  pheno- 
mena which  consciousness  discloses,  who  denies  this  the  inherent 
power  of  the  mind,  not  only  to  act  as  it  chooses,  but  to  form  its 
own  independent  choice.  In  making  this  choice  we  are  no  doubt 
swayed  by  considerations,  but  these  have  their  force  given  to 
them  by  the  will  itself,  which  may  set  a  high  value  upon  them, 
but  which  may  also,  if  it  please,  set  them  at  defiance. 

But  there  are  persons  who  tell  us  that  the  mind  is  swayed  by 
motives,  and  that  therefore  it  cannot  be  free.  To  this  we  answer, 
that  the  word  "  motive  "  is  ambiguous.  It  may  mean  a  mere  in- 
citement presented  by  something  out  of  the  will,  as,  for  instance, 
when  some  sensual  indulgence  is  thrown  open  to  us.  In  this 
sense  we  maintain  that  the  volitions  of  the  mind  are  not  caused 
by  the  mere  incitement.  This  incitement  in  such  a  case  can  act 
only  when  the  will  lends  its  sanction  to  it,  and  chooses  to  partake 
of  the  sensual  gratification.  This  inducement  will  be  powerful 
with  one  man,  and  will  have  no  power  with  another  man  ;  and  the 
cause  of  the  difference  will  be  found  not  in  the  mere  incitement, 
which  in  both  cases  is  the  same,  but  in  the  state  of  the  will 
of  the  two  individuals.  But  then  it  will  be  said,  that  the  man 
who  refuses  the  gratification,  equally  with  the  man  who  yields  to 
it,  is  swayed  by  an  inducement,  possibly  by  a  respect  to  the  law 
of  God,  which  forbids  the  indulgence  in  the  circumstances.  Very 
true,  we  reply ;  but  what  has  decided  between  the  two  competing 
inducements,  but  the  will,  which  has  chosen  to  yield  to  the  one 
and  to  resist  the  other  ?  The  word  "  motive,"  we  have  said,  is 
ambiguous.  If  it  means  the  sum  of  all  the  causes  producing  the 
final  volition,  it  is  evident  that  the  motive  ever  determines  the 
volitions  ;  but  then  in  this  sum  of  causes  the  main  element  is  the 
will  itself.  If  by  motive  is  meant  merely  the  causes  acting  inde- 
pendently of  the  will,  then  we  maintain  that  they  do  not  determine 
the  volition — they  merely  call  into  exercise  the  will,  which  is  the 
true  determining  power.* 

*  Jonathan  Edwards,  the  most  profound  writer  who  has  treated  of  this  sub  ect, 
and  with  whose  views  in  regard  to  the  reign  of  causation  in  the  will  we  agree,  has 
defined  motive.  "  By  motive,  I  mean  the  whole  of  that  which  moves,  excites,  or 
invites  the  mind  to  volition  ;  whether  that  be  one  thing  singly  or  many  things  con- 
junctly. Main'  particular  things  may  concur  and  unite  their  strength  to  induce  the 
mind,  and  when  it  is  so,  all  together  are  as  one  complex  motive.  And  when  I 
epeak  of  the  strongest  motive,  I  have  respect  to  the  strength  of  the  whole  that 


CAUSAL  CONNEXION  OF  GOD  WITH  niS  WORKS.  273 

We  may  distinguish  between  the  general  faculty  of  will  as  a 
property  of  mind,  and  the  particular  volitions  or  acts  of  the  will, 
just  as  we  distinguish  between  gravitation  and  its  specific  acts, 
say  in  moving  some  particle  of  matter.  The  particular  volitions 
have  all  a  cause,  but  the  main  part  of  the  cause  is  to  be  found  in 
the  faculty  of  will,  and  in  the  nature  of  the  will.  We  maintain 
that  these  volitions  are  not  determined  by  mere  sensations  from 
without,  as  the  philosophers  of  the  French  sensational  school  and 
the  followers  of  Robert  Owen  assert,  nor  by  the  last  act  of  the 
judgment,  nor  by  emotions  within  the  mind,  as  the  higher  order 
of  British  and  American  Necessarians  seem  to  assert,  but  by 
the  very  nature  of  the  will  itself  as  an  independent  self-acting 
faculty.  In  this  high  and  important  sense,  the  will  may  be  said 
to  possess  a  self-determining  power,  that  is,  a  power  of  deter- 
mining its  own  volitions* 

All  this  seems  to  be  revealed  by  the  consciousness,  and  is  not 
to  be  set  aside  by  logical  ingenuities,  and  the  starting  of  sophis- 
tical difficulties,  derived  from  the  operation  of  mere  physical 
nature,  or  the  exercise  of  the  other  faculties  of  the  human  mind, 
which  differ  from  the  will  just  as  the  will  differs  from  them.  It 
is  true  that  this  analysis,  as  we  shall  immediately  see,  removes 
the  great  question  discussed  between  the  Necessarians  and 
Libertarians  but  a  stage  farther  back.  But  there  is  this  great 
advantage  in  removing  the  question  thus  far  back,  that  we  leave 
in  front  of  it,  and  untouched  by  it,  the  faculty  of  will,  a  faculty 
of  a  most  peculiar  kind,  a  faculty  constrained  by  nothing  out  of 
itself,  but  following  its  own  free  and  independent  laws.     There 

operates  to  produce  a  particular  act  of  volition,  whether  that  be  the  strength  of  one 
thing  alone  or  of  many  together."  (Freedom  of  the  Will,  p.  1,  s.  2.)  In  asserting 
that  the  will  is  swayed  by  motives  as  thus  defined,  we  are  affirming  nothing  to  the 
point.  It  is  said  that  the  will  is  swayed  by  the  motive ;  and  when  we  ask  what  the 
motive  is,  it  is  answered,  All  that  sways  the  will.  We  are  making  no  progress  ;  we 
are  swinging  upon  a  hinge,  in  advancing  and  readvancing  such  maxims.  The 
motive  should  be  divided  into  two  parts,  that  which  is  without  the  will,  and  that 
which  is  within  the  will ;  the  latter  of  these  being,  we  maintain,  the  main  element. 
Sir  W.  Hamilton  has  been  so  kind  as  direct  the  author's  attention  to  the  definition 
by  Leibnitz,  in  one  of  his  letters  to  Clarke.  "  The  motives  comprehend  all  the 
dispositions  which  the  mind  can  have  to  act  voluntarily ;  for  they  include  not 
only  the  reasons,  but  also  the  inclinations,  arising  from  the  passions  or  other 
preceding  impressions,"  (see  extract  at  length  in  Hamilton's  Reid,  footnotes, 
pp.  610,  611.) 

*  See  Operation  of  Cause  and  Effect  in  the  Human  Mind,  in  Appendix  VII. 

S 


274         FREEDOM,  ETC.,  COMPATIBLE  WITH  THE 

is  a  truth  here,  to  which,  in  bur  humble  opinion,  Necessarians 
have  not  given  sufficient  prominence.  This  truth  furnishes  a 
sufficiently  broad  basis  to  allow  the  grand  doctrines  of  moral 
agency  and  accountability  to  be  reared  upon  it.  We  see  that 
when  man  possesses  such  a  faculty,  he  cannot  be  represented  as 
a  mere  machine.  He  is  not  treated  by  his  Maker,  nor  should  he 
be  treated  by  others,  as  a  machine.  We  see,  too,  that  whatever 
be  the  point  at  which  God,  as  Governor,  is  connected  with  the 
human  will,  it  is  beyond  the  field  in  which  moral  agency  and 
responsibility  lie. 

(2.)  The  full  fact  revealed  by  Consciousness  has  not  been  un- 
folded by  those  who  stop  short  of  this  point.  But  while  we  allot 
its  proper  field  to  the  one  fact,  we  must  not  allow  it  to  interfere 
with  another  fact.*  While  we  stand  up  for  the  free  exercise  of 
the  will  as  an  independent  faculty,  we  maintain  at  the  same  time 
that  it  has  laws  according  to  which  it  is  regulated.  For  proof 
of  this,  we  can  refer — 

First,  To  man's  intuitive  principles,  which  declare  that  the  law 
of  cause  and  effect  reigns  in  the  will,  and  in  regard  to  the  respon- 
sible acts  of  man,  as  it  does  in  every  other  department  of  the 
mind,  and  indeed  in  every  other  department  of  God's  works.  It 
is,  we  hold  with  all  philosophers  who  have  deeply  studied  this 

*  It  is  in  treating  of  this  second  fact  that  Jonathan  Edwards  is  impregnable. 
We  doubt  much,  however,  whether  he  has  given  the  first  fact  its  due  place.  He 
seems  to  represent  desire  as  a  mere  emotion,  and  volition  as  the  prevailing  desire. 
He  has  denied  to  the  will  a  self-determining  power,  and  seems  to  represent  all 
given  volitions  as  caused  by  antecedents  without  the  will,  and  to  be  found  either  in 
the  other  departments  of  the  mind,  or  in  external  nature.  It  can  be  shown  that 
the  older  divines,  even  those  of  the  school  of  Augustine  and  Calvin,  including 
Calvin  himself  and  John  Owen,  regarded  the  will  as  a  separate  department  of  the 
human  mind,  obeying  laws  of  its  own,  and  maintained  that  it  had  an  essential 
freedom  and  power  of  determination.  John  Calvin  says  in  writing  against  Pighius, 
"  If  force  be  opposed  to  freedom,  I  acknowledge,  and  will  always  affirm,  that  there 
is  a  free  will,  a  will  determining  itself,  and  proclaim  every  man  who  thinks  other- 
wise, a  heretic.  Let  the  will  be  called  free  in  this  sense,  that  is,  because  it  is  not 
constrained  or  impelled  irresistibly  from  without,  but  determines  itself  by  itself." 
See  Henry's  Life  of  Calvin,  Translated  by  Stebbing,  vol.  i.  p.  497.  Owen  says,  in 
his  Dissertation  on  Divine  Justice,  ch.  i.  sect.  26,  "  For  to  act  freely  is  the  very 
nature  of  the  will;  it  must  necessarily  act  freely."  The  older  divines  stood  up  for 
the  sovereignty  of  God,  but  never  sought  to  deny  the  essential  liberty  of  the  will. 
Without  losing  this  essential  freedom,  they  maintained  that  fallen  man's  will  has 
become  enslaved  in  consequence  of  sin — a  doctrine  overlooked  by  not  a  few  divines 
of  the  school  of  Edwards. 


CAUSAL  CONNEXION  OF  GOD  WITH  HIS  WORKS.  275 

subject,  a  fundamental  principle  of  our  very  constitution  which 
leads  us,  upon  the  occurrence  of  any  given  event,  to  say  it  has  a 
cause.  This  principle  leads  us,  upon  the  occurrence  of  a  pheno- 
menon, to  look  out  for  something  producing  .it,  whether  the 
phenomenon  be  material  or  mental.  In  regard,  for  instance,  to 
any  one  thought  or  feeling,  we  affirm  that  it  must  have  had  a 
cause  in  some  property  of  the  mind,  or  in  some  antecedent  state 
of  the  mind,  or  in  the  two  combined.  It  is  by  an  intuition  of 
our  nature  that  we  believe  that  this  thought  or  feeling  could  not 
have  been  produced  without  a  cause,  and  that  this  same  cause 
will  again  and  for  ever  produce  the  same  effects.  And  this  intui- 
tive principle  leads  us  to  expect  the  reign  of  causation,  not  only 
among  the  thoughts  and  feelings  generally,  but  among  the  wishes 
and  volitions  of  the  soul.  When  the  mind  is  cherishing  a  desire, 
or  resolving  upon  a  given  action,  here  is  a  phenomenon  of  which 
we  do  believe,  and  must  believe,  that  it  has  a  cause.  In  this 
respect,  wishes,  desires,  and  volitions,  are  no  exception  to  the 
absolute  rule,  which  holds  true  of  all  other  phenomena,  spiritual 
and  material.  "  This  principle,"  says  M.  Cousin,  "  is  real,  cer- 
tain, incontestable.  And  what,  then,  are  its  characters  ?  In  the 
first  place,  it  is  universal.  I  ask  if  there  be  a  savage,  a  child,  an 
old  man — a  man  in  health,  or  a  man  under  disease — or  even  an 
idiot,  provided  he  be  not  altogether  so — who,  upon  having  pre- 
sented to  him  a  phenomenon  which  commences  to  exist,  does  not 
on  the  instant  suppose  that  there  is  a  cause  ?  *  *  *  But  more, 
not  only  do  we  so  judge  in  all  cases  naturally,  and  by  the  in- 
stinctive power  of  our  understanding,  but  try  to  judge  otherwise 
— try,  upon  a  phenomenon  being  presented,  to  suppose  that  it 
has  no  cause — you  find  that  you  cannot ;  the  principle  is  not 
only  universal,  it  is  necessary."*  Here,  then,  is  wish,  adop- 
tion, volition,  as  a  phenomenon  :  we  hold,  according  to  the  above 
principle,  that  we  are  naturally,  intuitively,  and  necessarily,  led 
to  suppose  that  this  phenomenon  has  a  cause. 

The  author  now  quoted,  indeed,  tells  us  elsewhere,  "  Above 
my  will,  there  is  no  cause  to  be  sought;  the  principle  of  causality 
expires  before  the  cause  in  the  will ;  the  will  causes,  it  is  not 
itself  caused."f  But  we  hold  that  every  particular  act  of  the 
will,  as  a  phenomenon,  commencing  to  exist,  must  have  a  cause. 
If  it  be  said,  that  the  cause  lies  in  the  human  will  itself,  we  go 
*  2d  Ser.,  vol.  iii.  pp.  154, 155.  f  1st  Ser.,  vol.  i.  p.  342. 


276  FREEDOM,  ETC.,  COMPATIBLE  WITH  THE 


lJ   ■"  •*•*■'•  J 


back  to  that  human  will,  and  insist  that  it  too,  as  a  phenomenon, 
must  have  a  cause  of  its  operation,  and  the  mode  of  it.  It  is  by 
an  intuition  of  our  nature,  that  we  are  constrained  on  the  occur- 
rence of  a  phenomenon  to  believe  in  the  existence  of  a  cause. 
But  we  are  not  led  by  any  such  principle  to  deny  that  the  phe- 
nomena of  the  will  have  a  cause. 

When,  secondly,  we  resort  to  observation  founded  upon  con- 
sciousness;  this  view  is  confirmed.     We  anticipate  the  voluntary 
actions  of  mankind  as  we  anticipate  their  judgments.     No  doubt 
we  are  at  times  mistaken  in  the  one  case  as  in  the  other  in  our 
anticipations,  but  we  do  not  in  these  cases  conclude  that  the 
voluntary  actions  of  mankind  have  had  no  cause,  any  more  than 
we  infer  that  their  judgments  have  had  no  cause — we  conclude 
merely,  that  we  did  not  know  the  cause,  and  that  if  we  had 
known  the  full  cause,  we  could  have  certainly  anticipated  the 
result.     There  are  statistics  of  the  voluntary  actions  of  man- 
kind— as  of  crimes,  for  instance — which  are  as  accurate  as  the 
laws  of  mortality.     We  say  of  a  man  who  habitually  commits 
mean  and  dishonourable  actions,  that  his  conduct  proceeds  from 
a  mean  and  dishonourable  mind  ;  and  unless  some  change  take 
place,  (of  which  there  must  be  a  cause,)  we  expect  him  to  act  in 
the  same  way  in  time  to  come.     Or  should  this  individual,  at 
some  particular  time,  do  an  honourable  action,  we  still  seek  for 
some  principle  of  honour  remaining  in  the  midst  of  his  habitual 
meanness,  and  by  which  we  would  account  for  the  apparent 
anomaly.     In  short,  we  rise  from  effects  to  causes ;  and  from 
causes  we  anticipate  effects,  in  regard  to  the  will  as  in  regard  to 
everything  else.     Nor  do  we  find  our  expectations  disappointed. 
Mankind  find  the  mind  that  is  thoroughly  honourable  always 
acting  a  thoroughly  honourable  part.     And  this  is  the  ground  of 
the  confidence  which  we  put  in  our  fellow- creatures.     Were  the 
will  utterly  capricious,  as  some  suppose,  then  we  could  put  no 
confidence  in  a  fellow-man  ;  nay,  with  reverence  be  it  spoken,  we 
could  put  no  confidence  in  God  himself.     Mankind  do,  in  fact, 
trust  in  a  person  known  to  be  of  thorough  integrity,  that  he  will 
always  be  upright.     So  far  as  we  have  fears  that  any  given 
individual  may  commit  a  dishonest  action,  it  is  because  we  are 
not  sure  whether  he  is  possessed  of  complete  integrity.     So  far 
as  we  are  deceived  with  any  individual  in  whom  we  confided, 
it  is  not  because  his  character  has  not  brought  forth  its  proper 


CAUSAL  CONNEXION  OF  GOD  WITH  HIS  WORKS.  277 

fruits,  but  because  we  were  deceived  iu  the  estimate  which  we 
formed  of  it.  In  short,  human  observation  expects  and  finds, 
that  the  law  of  causality  reigns  among  the  wishes  of  the  heart 
and  the  purposes  of  the  mind,  as  it  reigns  in  every  other  depart- 
ment of  the  soul. 

By  far  the  most  formidable  objection  to  all  this  is  that  which 
is  thought  to  be  found  in  the  consciousness,  an  appeal  to  which 
is  made  with  great  force  by  Cousin,  by  Sir  W.  Hamilton,  and  by 
Tappan  in  his  treatises  on  the  will  It  is  affirmed  by  these 
authors,  that  we  are  led  by  consciousness  to  observe,  that  our 
volitions  have  no  cause.  We  meet  this  assertion  with  a  direct 
negation.  We  have  endeavoured  to  unfold  the  full  revelation 
of  consciousness,  but  we  maintain  that  it  does  not,  that  it  can- 
not carry  us  the  length  of  discovering  that  volitions  have  no 
cause.  This  is  a  subject  on  which  consciousness  considered  in 
itself  says  nothing,  and  can  say  nothing.  It  may  testify  in 
regard  to  the  existence  or  non-existence  of  such  or  such  a  mental 
state,  but  it  can  say  nothing  directly  as  to  its  being  or  its 
not  being  necessarily  connected  with  some  other  phenomenon, 
and  that  possibly  lying  out  of  the  field  of  consciousness.  In 
order  to  discover  whether  there  be  such  a  connexion  we  must 
resort  to  other  processes,  when  we  find  that  the  intuitions 
revealed  by  consciousness,  as  well  as  the  observations  founded 
on  consciousness,  lead  us  to  believe  that  the  will  itself,  with 
its  special  actings,  like  every  other  phenomenon,  must  have  a 
cause. 

But  while  there  are  laws  of  the  will,  we  are  not  to  regard  them 
as  laying  any  restraint  upon  it.  This  would  be  a  complete 
misunderstanding  of  their  nature.  They  no  more  lay  restraints 
upon  the  will,  than  the  fundamental  laws  of  reason  and  conscience 
trammel  these  faculties  in  the  discovery  of  what  is  true  and  what 
is  virtuous.  A  truthful  mind  may  be  incapable  of  sanctioning 
falsehood,  and  an  honourable  mind  may  be  incapable  of  designing 
a  mean  action  ;  but  this  is  not  because  of  any  stern  necessity  con- 
trolling the  will,  but  because  of  the  very  nature  of  the  will  itself. 
A  person  of  an  opposite  spirit  may  be  quite  as  incapable  of  con- 
ceiving of  a  generous  action,  and  this  not  because  of  any  restraint 
laid  upon  the  will,  but  because  of  the  inward  depravity  of  the 
will.  These  laws,  which  are  just  the  rules  of  the  action  of  the 
will,  the  rules  which  it  adopts,  do  in  no  way  interfere  with  the 


278         FREEDOM,  ETC.,  COMPATIBLE  WITH  THE 

freedom  of  the  will ;  they  leave  it  as  free  as  it  is  possible  for  it 
to  be,  in  any  intelligible  sense  of  the  term. 

In  prosecuting  such  inquiries  as  these,  we  find  ourselves  in 
view  of  two  truths,  which  can  be  established  on  separate  and 
independent  evidence,  and  which  must  always  be  taken  along 
with  us  in  treating  of  intelligent  creatures  as  under  government. 
The  one  is,  that  man  is  a  free  agent  and  morally  responsible  to 
his  Governor ;  and  the  other  is,  that  he  is  physically  dependent 
on  his  Creator.  Each  of  these  truths  stands  on  its  separate  basis. 
The  one  can  be  established  by  consciousness  and  conscience  ;  and 
the  other  by  reason  and  observation.  Man,  on  the  one  hand,  is 
conscious  that  he  has  a  power  of  will  and  self-agency  ;  and  his 
conscience  announces,  as  we  shall  show  in  the  succeeding  sections, 
that  he  is  responsible.  On  the  other  hand,  we  are  led  by  a  fun- 
damental law  of  belief  to  expect  the  law  of  cause  and  effect  to 
reign  in  mind  as  it  reigns  in  matter ;  and  we  actually  find  the 
operation  of  such  a  law  in  the  exercise  of  the  will.  Each  truth 
is  thus  supported  by  its  independent  evidence  ;  and  it  is  therefore 
impossible  that  the  two  can  be  inconsistent.  It  is  only  through 
a  confusion  of  ideas,  through  confounding  the  physical  and  the 
moral,  that  superficial  thinkers  are  inclined  to  look  upon  them 
as  contradictory.* 

If  any  man  asserts  that,  in  order  to  responsibility,  the  will 
must  be  free — that  is,  free  from  external  restraint,  free  to  make 
its  choice,  as  well  as  free  to  act  as  it  pleases — we  at  once  and 
heartily  agree  with  him  ;  we  maintain,  that  in  this  sense  the  will 

*  The  principle  of  contradiction  is,  that  the  same  attribute  cannot  be  affirmed 
and  denied  at  the  same  time  of  the  same  subject.  We  are  not  violating  it,  when 
we  assert  that  man  has  free  will,  and  yet  that  causation  is  found  among  his  volun- 
tary acts.  In  order  to  prove  that  we  are  violating  it,  it  would  be  necessary  to 
shew  that  freedom  and  non-causation  are  the  same  attribute.  This  is  the  very 
point  in  dispute,  and  cannot  be  settled  by  the  principle  of  contradiction  itself,  nor 
indeed  by  any  mere  analytic  or  logical  principle,  but  by  synthetic  evidence  which 
cannot  possibly  be  had.  This  remark  admits  of  an  application  to  a  vast  host  of 
other  objections  brought  against  the  doctrines  of  religion,  natural  and  revealed. 
The  rationalists  have  been  fond  of  asserting  that  there  are  contradictions  in  these 
doctrines  to  one  another,  or  to  established  truths,  but  have  seldom  enunciated  the 
principle  of  contradiction,  or  attempted  to  apply  it  in  a  rigid  form.  In  philosophy, 
too,  it  has  been  far  too  readily  admitted,  since  Kant  propounded  his  Antinomies 
of  Pure  Reason,  that  the  dogmas  of  reason  may  contradict  each  other.  We  are 
certain  that  the  contradiction  lies  not  in  the  principles  of  reason,  but  in  certain 
a  priori  representations  of  them.  This  is  to  be  corrected  by  a  cautious  inductioo 
of  them  conducted  in  the  Baconian  method. 


CAUSAL  CONNEXION  OF  GOD  WITH  HIS  WORKS.  279 

is  free,  as  free  as  it  is  possible  for  any  man  to  conceive  it  to  be. 
But  if,  not  contented  with  this  admission,  he  insist  that,  in  order 
to  responsibility,  the  acts  of  the  will,  and  the  will  itself,  must  be 
absolutely  uncaused,  we  immediately  ask  him  for  the  evidence  of 
this  affirmative  proposition.  If  in  referring  to  the  conscience  of 
man  as  that  which  declares  his  accountability,  he  assert  that  it 
intimates  that  man  cannot  be  responsible  when  his  volitions 
have  a  cause,  then  we  at  once  meet  his  assertion  with  a  direct 
contradiction.  The  conscience  declares  man  to  be  responsible  to 
God  ;  but  we  fearlessly  affirm,  that  it  attaches  no  such  qualifica- 
tion as  that  now  referred  to  as  the  condition. 

We  can  produce  the  separate  proofs  of  the  two  separate  truths 
advocated  by  us ;  and  when  looked  at  apart,  these  proofs  are 
acknowledged  to  be  irrefragable.  Should  it  be  demanded  of  us 
that  we  reconcile  them,  we  answer  that  we  are  not  bound  to 
offer  a  positive  reconciliation.*  We  point  to  the  two  objects ; 
but  we  are  not  obliged  to  show  what  is  the  link,  or  so  much  as 
to  show  that  there  is  a  bond  connecting  them.  Is  it  required  of 
us  in  any  other  department  of  philosophy  to  point  out  the  vincu- 
lum uniting  two  truths,  established  on  independ-ent  evidence, 
before  the  mind  gives  its  assent  to  them  ?  We  do  not  require 
the  physical  investigator  to  point  out  the  connexion  between 
mechanical  and  chemical  combinations  before  we  believe  in  their 
existence  ;  we  only  require  him  to  furnish  the  separate  evidence 

*  All  Libertarians  who  admit  that  the  prescience  of  God  reaches  to  the  voluntary 
actions  of  his  creatures,  (and  none  but  Socinians  deny  this,)  are  landed  in  the  very 
same  difficulties,  that  is,  they  hold  truths  which  they  cannot  reconcile.  For  if 
voluntary  acts  have  been  foreseen,  they  must,  or,  at  least,  shall  certainly  happen, 
and  there  is  no  effectual  way  of  shewing  how  man's  deeds  are  certain  beforehand, 
while  yet  he  may  do  as  he  pleases.  In  order  to  avoid  the  difficulty,  it  has  been 
alleged,  that  God  may  be  regarded  as  freed  from  the  contemplation  of  events  under 
the  relation  of  time,  and  that  the  future  may  be  seen  by  him  as  present.  But  this 
implies  that  we  set  aside  that  fundamental  law  of  belief  which  constrains  us  to 
believe  in  the  succession  of  time  as  an  objective  reality,  and  that  the  future  is  not 
present,  and  consequently,  implies  that  God  has  given  us  intuitions  which  deceive 
us ;  in  short,  lands  us  in  the  subjectivity  of  Kant  and  the  idealism  of  Fichte  with  all 
their  consequences.  All  who  draw  back  from  this  issue,  must  be  prepared  to  admit, 
that  there  is  no  means  of  finding  a  positive  reconciliation  between  the  prescience 
and  the  implied  certainty  of  the  event  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  power  of  choice 
left  to  the  creature  on  the  other.  This  may  be  the  proper  place  for  remarking 
that  the  Word  of  God  asserts  on  the  one  hand,  the  sovereignty  and  foreknowledge 
of  God,  and  on  the  other  hand  the  free  agency  of  man,  but  proffers  no  reconcilia- 
tion. Divines  may— in  most  cases  should— take  up  the  same  position,  and  decline 
entering  upon  the  philosophical  questions  of  causation  and  necessity. 


280         FREEDOM,  ETC.,  COMPATIBLE  WITH  THE 

of  the  existence  of  each.  Or,  to  take  another  illustration.  By 
means  of  the  senses,  we  arrive  at  a  knowledge  of  the  existence 
of  sounds,  colours,  and  other  external  objects :  and  we  are 
certain,  from  our  consciousness,  that  we  are  possessed  of  intel- 
lectual ideas ;  no  reasonable  mind  demands  more  than  the  sepa- 
rate evidence  of  each ;  no  man  requires  some  mysterious  link 
binding  them  together  to  be  pointed  out,  in  order  to  believe  in 
both.  Now,  we  are  not  required  to  act  on  a  different  principle, 
in  order  to  a  rational  belief,  both  in  the  moral  responsibility 
and  physical  dependence  of  man.  But  does  some  one  declare 
them  to  be  contradictory  ?  We  ask  him  for  his  proof.  He 
can  throw  the  onus  probandi  upon  us,  in  reference  to  the  two 
truths  advanced  by  us,  and  we  are  ready  to  furnish  him  with 
abundant  proofs.  But  if  he  bring  in  a  third  proposition,  to  the 
effect  that  our  two  propositions  are  contradictory,  we  now  throw 
the  onus  probandi  upon  him  ;  and  his  proof  will  turn  out  to  be 
nothing  but  his  proposition  re-asserted,  or  a  logomachy  in  which 
general  phrases  are  used  to  which  no  distinct  meaning  can  be 
attached,  or  used  in  one  sense  to  establish  conclusions  which  can 
be  legitimately  drawn  from  them  only  when  used  in  a  totally 
different  sense. 

Such  general  considerations  as  these  should  satisfy  the  mind, 
that  both  truths  may  be  established,  though  no  man  could  point 
out  the  bond  connecting  them ;  or  though  there  should  be  no 
link  beyond  the  general  relation  of  all  things  to  one  another  in 
the  Divine  mind  and  purpose.  Far  as  the  eye  can  reach,  these 
two  truths  are  seen  running  parallel  to  each  other.  Possibly 
there  may  be  no  point  in  which  they  coincide,  but  there  is  cer- 
tainly no  point  in  which  they  come  in  collision  till  they  terminate 
in  the  supreme  Source  of  all  power  and  all  good.* 

But  let  us  plunge  a  little  into  the  thicket,  so  far  at  least  as  to 
discover  that  nothing  is  to  be  gained  by  penetrating  farther.     If 

*  The  power  of  will,  and  the  universal  reign  of  causation,  we  hold  to  be  ultimate 
facts  attested  by  primary  principles  in  our  constitution.  Necessarians  have  com- 
monly denied  the  one,  and  Libertarians  the  other,  as  reaching  at  least  to  the  will. 
AVe  maintain  both,  because  we  have  evidence  for  each.  As  being  ultimate  facts, 
we  apprehend  there  can  be  no  connexion  discovered  between  them  by  us.  If  there 
could  be  a  connexion  discovered,  this  would  show  that  they  were  not  ultimate 
facts,  but  that  they  met  in  a  farther  unity.  While  it  is  vain,  as  we  suspect,  to 
seek  for  a  connexion,  it  is  assuredly  vain  to  seek  for  a  contradiction  ;  and  it  is 
wrong  to  represent  the  one  doctrine  as  setting  aside  the  other. 


CAUSAL  CONNEXION  OF  GOD  WITH  HIS  WORKS.  281 

the  mind  can  be  brought  to  philosophical  humility  in  no  other 
way,  let  it  be  by  its  being  driven  on  that  wall,  of  which  Mackin- 
tosh says,  that  "  the  wall  of  adamant  which  bounds  human  in- 
quiry has  scarcely  ever  been  discovered  by  any  adventurer,  until 
he  has  been  roused  by  the  shock  which  drove  him  back."* 

Let  us,  with  the  view  of  gaining  a  more  favourable  place  for 
inspecting  this  subject,  convey  ourselves  in  imagination  into  the 
position  of  the  Divine  Being  when  resolving  to  create  substances 
different  from  himself.  Such  questions  as  these  would  require 
(humanly  speaking)  to  be  solved :  Is  God  to  form  only  such 
creatures  as  have  no  will  independent  of  his  will  ?  Are  all 
creatures  to  be  material  or  simply  sentient  and  instinctive,  but 
without  reason  and  separate  moral  agency  ?  It  is  conceivable 
that  in  some  worlds,  or  in  our  own  world  at  an  earlier  stage  in 
its  history,  all  creation  is  or  was  of  this  lower  grade.  But  such 
a  world,  it  is  evident,  could  not  manifest  the  higher  attributes 
of  the  Divine  character.  Is  there  to  be  no  other  development 
of  the  character  of  God  ?  Could  not  God  create  a  being  in  his 
own  image,  in  this  respect  among  others,  that  he  had  freedom 
of  will  in  the  best  sense  of  the  term,  as  implying  responsibility  ? 
No  one  can  demonstrate  that  God  could  not  create  such  a  beinc. 

D 

Such  a  creature,  while  retaining  his  holy  character,  would  be  a 
nobler  manifestation  of  the  Divine  glory  than  mere  material  or 
even  intellectual  existence.  In  creating  such  a  being,  God 
would  reflect  some  of  his  highest  perfections  ;  and  we  can  con- 
ceive him  rejoicing  over  the  act,  and  declaring  it  to  be  very 
good ;  and  all  intelligent  creation  rejoicing  with  him  over  the 
formation  of  every  new  order  of  free  moral  agents. 

"  How  would  it  now  look  to  you,"  says  the  philosophic  Saxon 
king,  Alfred,  "  if  there  were  any  very  powerful  king,  and  he  had 
no  freemen  in  all  his  kingdom,  but  that  all  were  slaves  ?  Then 
said  I,  It  would  not  be  thought  by  me  right  nor  reasonable  if 
men  in  a  servile  condition  only  should  attend  upon  him.  Then, 
quoth  he,  it  would  be  more  unnatural  if  God,  in  all  his  kingdom, 
had  no  free  creature  under  his  power.  Therefore,  he  made  two 
rational  creatures,  free  angels  and  men,  and  gave  them  the  great 
gift  of  freedom.  Hence  they  could  do  evil  as  well  as  good, 
whichever  they  would.  He  gave  this  very  free  gift,  and  a  very 
I'xed  law,  to  every  man  unto  this  end." 

*  Prel.  Dis.,  sect.  ii. 


282         FREEDOM,  ETC.,  COMPATIBLE  WITH  THE 

We  rejoice  to  recognise  such  a  being  in  man.  We  trust  that 
we  are  cherishing  no  presumptuous  feeling  when  we  believe  him 
to  be  free,  as  his  Maker  is  free.  We  believe  him,  morally 
speaking,  to  be  as  independent  of  external  control  as  his  Creator 
must  ever  be,  as  that  Creator  was  when,  in  a  past  eternity,  there 
was  no  external  existence  to  control  him. 

But  the  advocate  of  philosophical  necessity  interposes,  and 
tells  us  that  every  effect  has  a  cause,  and  that  every  disposition 
and  volition  of  the  intelligent  creature  must  have  an  antecedent 
producing  it.  We  at  once  agree  with  him.  We  are  led  by  an 
intuition  of  our  nature  to  a  belief  in  the  invariable  connexion 
between  cause  and  effect ;  and  we  see  numerous  proofs  of  this 
law  of  cause  and  effect  reigning  in  the  human  mind  as  it  does 
in  the  external  world,  and  reigning  in  the  will  as  it  does  in 
every  other  department  of  the  mind.  But  in  believing  the 
whole  mental  world  to  be  thus  regulated,  we  are  not  seeking  to 
lower  or  degrade  it.  So  far  from  the  law  of  cause  and  effect 
being  a  restraint  on  the  freedom  of  intelligent  beings,  we  cannot 
conceive  of  a  free  and  intelligent  agent  except  under  the  opera- 
tion of  such  a  law.  We  may,  indeed,  by  an  exercise  of  the 
imagination,  try  to  picture  to  ourselves  a  being  in  whose  mental 
operations  there  is  no  such  law,  whose  thoughts  and  volitions 
follow  each  other  at  random ;  but  we  cannot  conceive  of  that 
being  as  intelligent  or  responsible ;  we  are  constrained  to  con- 
ceive of  him  as  utterly  helpless,  and  in  a  more  lamentable  con- 
dition than  the  raving  maniac. 

If  it  be  alleged  that  the  circumstance,  that  volitions  have  a 
cause,  renders  the  agent  no  longer  responsible  for  them,  we 
forthwith  demand  the  proof.  If  it  be  replied,  that  the  conscience 
says  so,  then  we  meet  the  assertion  with  a  direct  negation.  The 
conscience  clearly  announces  the  responsibility  of  intelligent  and 
voluntary  agents,  but  it  attaches  no  such  condition  to  accounta- 
bility. No  doubt  it  says,  that  if  actions  do  not  proceed  from 
the  will,  but  from  something  else,  from  mere  physical  or  external 
restraint,  then  the  agent  is  not  answerable  for  them.  But  if 
the  deeds  proceed  from  the  will,  then  it  at  once  attaches  a  re- 
sponsibility. Place  before  the  mind  a  murder  committed  by  a 
party  through  pure  physical  compulsion  brought  to  bear  on  the 
arm  that  inflicted  the  blow,  and  the  conscience  says,  Here  no 
guilt  is  attachable.     But  let  this  same  murder  be  done  with  the 


CAUSAL  CONNEXION  OF  GOD  WITH  HIS  WORKS.  283 

thorough  consent  of  the  will,  the  conscience  stops  not  to  inquire 
whether  this  consent  has  been  caused  or  no ;  on  the  contrary, 
it  instantly  declares  the  action  to  be  highly  criminal.  Should 
it  be  proven  that  this  act  of  the  will  has  proceeded  from  an 
utterly  malignant  state  of  the  will  going  before,  so  far  from 
withdrawing  its  former  sentence,  the  moral  avenger  pronounces 
a  farther  condemnation  upon  the  prior  exhibition  now  brought 
under  its  notice.  The  admiration  which  the  moral  faculty  leads 
us  to  entertain  of  any  of  the  holy  acts  of  God's  will  is  not  lessen- 
ed but  increased,  when  we  learn  that  they  proceed  from  a  will 
essentially  holy  ;  and  the  reason  is,  because  now  we  admire,  not 
merely  the  single  acts  brought  under  our  notice,  but  all  the 
other  exhibitions  of  that  holy  will  that  rise  before  our  mind. 
Nor,  when  we  descend  from  heaven  to  earth,  and  from  God  to 
man,  do  we  find  the  conscience  excusing  any  given  criminal 
action  of  the  human  family,  when  it  is  discovered  that  it  pro- 
ceeds from  a  heart  utterly  depraved.  On  the  contrary,  we  find 
the  conscience  now  going  forth  upon  this  farther  fact  brought 
under  its  notice,  and  pronouncing  a  heavier  condemnation  upon 
it  than  even  upon  the  other. 

In  holding  by  these  great  truths,  we  would  cut  a  clear  way 
through  this  perplexing  subject,  and  thus  cast  off  on  either  side 
difficulties  which  it  would  require  a  volume  to  discuss  in  detail. 
Our  limits  admit  of  our  considering  only  one  objection — that 
derived  from  the  law  of  cause  and  effect,  being  in  the  human 
mind  a  divinely  appointed  law. 

The  discovery  of  this  very  obvious  circumstance  has  led  hasty 
and  superficial  thinkers  to  draw  very  erroneous  conclusions. 
They  feel  as  if  they  were  driven  to  one  or  other  of  two  horns  of 
the  dilemma ; — to  suppose,  with  Lord  Karnes,  that  man  cannot 
properly  be  responsible  ;  or,  when  conscience  opposes  this  mani- 
fest heresy  against  our  nature,  to  draw  back,  and  maintain  that 
the  law  of  cause  and  effect  has,  and  can  have,  no  place  in  the 
human  mind.  We  take  neither  alternative.  We  are  shut  up 
by  observation,  and  the  primary  laws  of  our  intellectual  being, 
to  believe  that  the  law  of  causality  prevails  among  the  voluntary 
acts  of  mankind,  as  it  does  everywhere  else  ;  but  we  deny  that 
this  law  interferes  with  our  moral  responsibility  ;  and  if  the  law 
itself  does  not  free  us  from  moral  obligations,  it  is  clear  that  the 
circumstance  that  God  hath  appointed  it  cannot  be  regarded  as 


284  FREEDOM,  ETC.,  COMPATIBLE  WITH  THE 

interfering  with  our  accountability.  Suppose  that  this  law  had 
not  been  appointed  by  God — suppose  that  man  had  been  a  self- 
existent  underived  being  like  God,  the  existence  of  such  a  law 
could  not  have  prevented  us  from  becoming  moral  agents  ;  and 
every  one  must  see,  that  if  the  mere  law  itself  could  not  do  this, 
the  Divine  connexion  with  the  law  can  have  no  such  effect. 

But  this  circumstance  is  fitted  to  show  that  the  creature  may 
be  dependent,  and  yet  free.  He  is  rendered  dependent  by  a 
divinely  appointed  law ;  but  that  law,  so  far  as  it  touches  on 
moral  agency,  differs  in  no  way  from  the  same  law  in  a  self- 
existent  mind.  We  thus  see  ourselves  to  be  at  once  under 
physical  and  moral  law,  to  be  equally  under  the  Divine  govern- 
ment, physically  and  morally.  We  are  under  the  one  through 
our  physical  nature,  through  the  divinely  appointed  law  of  cause 
and  effect,  and  we  are  under  the  other  through  our  moral  and 
responsible  nature. 

He  who  would  deny  the  former  of  these  truths  must  be  pre- 
pared to  hold  that  the  human  mind  is  not  under  the  influence 
of  law  of  any  kind,  and  that  all  attempts  to  classify  its  powers, 
or  calculate,  at  least,  upon  its  voluntary  operations,  must  be 
utterly  vain ;  and  that  we  cannot  from  the  past  anticipate  what 
any  man's  conduct  may  he  in  time  to  come.  This  man  sets 
himself  against  both  the  intuitions  and  the  observations  of  the 
understanding.  He  who  denies  the  latter  of  these  truths  sets 
himself  against  the  clearest  enunciations  of  the  conscience. 
Some  would  charge  us  with  believing  contradictory  propositions, 
in  holding  by  both ;  but  we  could  with  greater  justice  charge 
that  man  with  contradicting  one  or  other  of  two  fundamental 
principles  of  our  nature,  who  would  deny  either.  We  are  not 
at  liberty  to  take  our  choice  between  them  ;  for,  in  rejecting  the 
one  or  other,  we  are  rejecting  an  essential  part  of  our  very 
nature.  We  therefore  cleave  to  both  as  truths  which  meet  in 
our  own  as  they  meet  in  the  Divine  mind. 

But  a  difficulty  is  pressed  upon  us — Is  not  God  to  blame  for 
the  creature's  guilt,  through  his  connexion  with  this  law  ?  Now, 
in  reference  to  this  difficulty,  we  remark,  first,  that  though  God 
was  to  blame,  we  should  not  therefore  be  freed  from  responsibility. 
When  one  man  leads  another  into  sin,  the  sin  of  the  latter  being 
committed  willingly,  he  cannot  free  himself  from  the  guilt. 
Even  on  the  supposition  that  the  creature  could  make  his  Crea- 


CAUSAL  CONNEXION  OF  GOD  WITH  HIS  WORKS.  285 

tor  share  his  guilt,  he  should  not  therefore  be  free  from  blame 
on  falling  into  sin.  The  supposition  now  made  is  revolting  to 
every  well-constituted  mind ;  but  it  may  serve  a  good  purpose 
to  put  it,  as  it  shows  how,  even  if  the  sinner  could  throw  blame 
on  his  Maker,  he  would  not  thereby  be  freed  from  guilt  himself. 
In  answer  to  the  question,  we  remark,  secondly,  that  as  this  law 
does  not  interfere  with  the  liberty  of  the  agent,  so  God's  con- 
nexion with  it  cannot  involve  him  in  the  sin,  as  long  as  that 
agent  is  left  in  possession  of  his  essential  liberty.  If  it  can  be 
demonstrated  on  other  grounds,  as  all  admit,  that  God  utterly 
abhors  that  which  is  morally  evil,  the  mere  circumstance  that 
he  hath  so  constituted  man  that  his  mind  is  regulated  by  cause 
and  effect,  cannot  implicate  him  in  man's  guilt,  as  long  as  he 
hath  left  him  free  to  follow  his  own  will. 

But  it  is  time  that  we  were  escaping  from  these  thorny  brakes. 
It  was  with  considerable  reluctance  that  we  entered  upon  the 
subject  of  the  causal  connexion  of  Deity  with  the  moral  actions 
of  his  intelligent  and  responsible  creatures.  Still,  as  the  topic 
came  in  our  way,  it  might  have  seemed  cowardice  to  flee  from 
it ;  and  it  was  needful,  besides,  to  consider  it,  in  order  to  rectify 
the  false  notions  that  lie  on  either  side.  We  tremble  equally 
at  the  idea  of  removing  the  creature  from  under  the  control  of 
God,  and  of  making  him  so  dependent  as  to  involve  God  in  the 
responsibility  of  his  acts. 

"  When  reason,"  says  Jouffroy,  "  fails  of  success,  it  may 
master  the  difficulty  which  has  veiled  the  subject,  by  separating, 
with  care  in  the  question,  that  which  is  known  from  that  which 
is  not  known ;  by  determining,  with  precision,  the  nature  ot 
this  difficulty,  and  the  circumstances,  the  extent,  and  the  causes 
in  detail ;  by  exploring,  in  a  word,  the  rock  which  it  cannot 
break,  and  if  it  does  not  leave  the  problem  resolved,  it  at  least 
renders  to  science  the  office  of  correctly  weighing  it.  These 
mere  negative  researches  often  conduct  to  a  still  more  important 
result.  In  fathoming  the  nature  of  a  difficulty  which  it  cannot 
surmount,  it  may  happen  that  science  discovers  that  this  diffi- 
culty is  insurmountable  in  itself.  Then  it  is  no  longer  the  limit 
of  the  power  of  the  individual  that  is  met  with  and  ascertained 
— it  is  that  of  the  power  of  human  reason  itself.  This  result  is 
not  less  important  than  the  discovery  of  the  truth  itself.  There 
are  two  alternatives  to  the  man  who  thinks  to  have  his  spirit 


286  DISTINCTIONS  TO  BE  ATTENDED  TO 

calmed.  The  first  is,  to  possess,  or  think  that  he  possesses,  the 
truth  on  the  questions  wffich  interest  humanity  ;  and  the  second 
is,  to  know  clearly  that  this  truth  is  inaccessible,  and  to  know- 
why  it  is  so.  We  never  see  humanity  rebelling  against  the 
barriers  which  limit  its  power  on  all  hands."*  Now,  it  is  to 
this  issue  that  we  have  sought  to  bring  the  question  of  man's 
free  and  moral  agency.  For  ourselves,  we  may  think  that  we 
possess  the  truth.  Should  there  be  persons  who  have  not  ar- 
rived at  so  satisfying  a  conclusion,  we  are  convinced  that  the 
considerations  urged  above,  if  sufficiently  pondered,  will  at  least 
conduct  them  to  the  alternative  conclusion — that  the  difficulty 
is  insurmountable.  High  truths,  like  high  mountains,  are  apt 
to  veil  themselves  in  clouds.  Nevertheless,  it  is  from  the  sum- 
mit of  these  lofty  principles,  if  we  could  but  reach  it,  that  we 
see  the  nature  and  bearing  of  all  connected  truth,  as  from  the 
top  of  some  high  mountain,  the  axis  of  its  range,  we  discover 
the  shape  and  size  of  all  the  adjacent  hills.  We  may  be  de- 
ceived in  thinking  that,  in  these  speculations,  we  have  reached 
such  a  summit — we  may  only  have  mounted  into  a  region  of 
perpetual  clouds.  In  either  case,  the  mind  should  feel  that  it 
has  reached  a  limit  which  it  cannot  pass,  and,  instead  of  seeking 
to  rise  higher,  it  should  return  to  explore  the  vast  and  fruitful 
region  within  its  reach. 

SECT.  III. — DISTINCTIONS  TO  BE  ATTENDED  TO  IN  ETHICAL 

INVESTIGATION. 

In  entering  upon  ethical  inquiry,  we  are  met  at  the  very 
threshold  by  the  important  question,  Is  there  a  real  distinction 
between  virtue  and  vice  ?  This  is  a  question  to  which  the  mind 
sincerely  inquiring  after  truth  may  find  an  immediate  and 
direct  answer,  and  this  independently  of  all  those  subtle  investi- 
gations into  which  certain  other  ethical  inquiries  conduct  us. 
The  human  soul,  by  the  very  principles  of  its  constitution,  in- 
dicates that  there  is  an  indelible  distinction  between  virtue  and 
vice,  even  as  there  is  an  indelible  distinction  between  truth  and 
error.  Every  inquirer  has  a  ready  method  of  settling  this  point. 
Let  him  submit  to  his  mind  such  voluntary  acts  as  the  following, 
and  attend  to  the  decision  which  it  pronounces.     Two  persons, 

*  Morale  en  Melanges. 


IN  ETHICAL  INQUIRY.  287 

similarly  situated,  receive  each  a  signal  favour  from  a  disin- 
terested and  self-sacrificing  benefactor  ;  the  one  cherishes  grati- 
tude all  his  life,  and  the  other  speedily  forgets  that  he  is  under 
any  obligation  to  the  individual  who  has  thus  befriended  him. 
When  these  two  acts  are  submitted  to  the  mind,  it  pronounces 
its  decision  instantly  and  authoritatively  ;  and  the  one  decision 
is  expressed  in  the  language,  "  This  is  right,"  and  the  other  in 
the  words,  "  This  is  wrong."  Let  metaphysicians  dispute  as 
they  may,  moralists  may  say,  about  the  faculties  or  feelings 
exercised  when  the  mind  pronounces  such  judgments,  there  is 
no  doubt  that  the  mind  does  pronounce  such  sentences,  and 
cannot  be  made  to  give  forth  any  other.  Should  any  one  insist 
on  our  producing  a  reason  for  these  judgments,  we  reckon  it  suf- 
ficient to  reply,  that  they  are  primitive  judgments  declared  by  the 
mind  on  the  case  being  submitted  to  it,  and  that  we  cannot  pro- 
duce a  reason  for  the  judgment  which  the  mind  utters  in  this  case, 
any  more  than  for  that  to  which  it  comes,  when,  on  contemplating 
first  sounds,  and  then  colours,  it  proclaims  them  to  be  different. 

But  other  questions  press  themselves  upon  us,  and  demand  an 
answer;  and  it  is  of  great  moment  that  we  be  able  to  separate 
the  questions  which  have  become  confounded  together  in  ethical 
investigation.  The  later  writers  on  this  subject,  in  our  country, 
appear  to  us  not  to  have  been  sufficiently  careful  in  distinguish- 
ing the  things  that  differ,  and  have  at  times  lost  themselves  in 
a  labyrinth,  in  consequence  of  their  not  laying  out  in  the  fabric 
which  they  have  built  a  few  leading  passages,  into  which  all  the 
others  might  run. 

Besides  the  general  question  above  referred  to,  there  are  in  reality 
four  subjects  contained  in  the  one  grand  subject,  and  the  greatest 
confusion  of  idea,  and  in  some  cases  positive  error,  have  arisen 
from  not  systematically  noticing  the  distinction  between  them. 

There  is,  first,  the  mental  process,  the  faculty  or  feeling,  by 
which  the  distinction  between  vice  and  virtue  is  observed. 

There  is,  secondly,  the  common  quality  or  qualities  to  be 
found  in  all  virtuous  action. 

There  is,  thirdly,  the  rule  by  which  we  are  to  determine 
whether  an  action  is  virtuous. 

There  are,  fourthly,  the  consequences  which  follow  from 
virtue  and  vice  in  the  feelings  of  the  mind  and  the  experience 
of  society. 


288  DISTINCTIONS  TO  BE  ATTENDED  TO 

The  elder  ethical  writers,  whether  of  ancient  Greece  and 
Rome  or  modern  Europe,  treated  very  much  of  what  we  have 
called  the  general  question,  and  of  what  we  have  arranged,  as 
the  fourth  of  the  specific  inquiries.  They  have  shown  that  there 
is  an  indelible  distinction  between  right  and  wrong,  and  their 
most  eloquent  passages  are  those  in  which  they  have  pointed 
out  the  consequences  which  usually  follow  the  good  and  the 
evil.  Their  grand  aim  was  to  establish  both  of  these  truths, 
and,  having  done  so,  they  thought  they  had  secured  a  deep 
foundation  for  morality.  No  doubt  some  of  them  resolved  the 
one  into  the  other— the  Epicureans  resolving  all  virtue  into  a 
refined  love  of  happiness,  and  the  Stoics  speaking  slightingly  of 
happiness  except  in  its  relation  to  virtue.  Still  all  the  higher 
order  of  moralists  sought  to  establish  both  truths.  Some  have 
maintained  that  we  should  be  on  our  guard  against  looking  to 
anything  but  the  personal  charms  of  virtue  ;  and  others,  afraid 
that  these  might  not  be  sufficient  to  fix  our  regards,  have  been 
fond  of  magnifying  her  patrimony  ;  but  all  agree  that  she  is  to 
be  sought  after  for  what  she  is  in  herself,  or  for  what  she  brings 
with  her. 

The  other  questions  are  also  of  great  moment,  and  an  answer 
is  demanded  to  them  by  the  precision  expected  in  modern  inves- 
tigation. 

The  first,  or  the  determination  of  the  moral  faculty,  must 
no  doubt  be  of  a  psychological  as  well  as  an  ethical  character ; 
but  it  is  only,  as  we  shall  shew  forthwith,  by  an  inquiry  into  the 
facts  of  our  moral  nature,  that  we  can  hope  to  ascertain  its 
principles. 

It  is  of  the  utmost  moment,  as  we  shall  see  in  the  sequel, 
that  the  second  question,  as  to  the  qualities  which  must  meet 
in  virtuous  action,  should  be  kept  distinct  from  the  first,  or  the 
inquiry  into  the  nature  of  the  mental  process,  which  recognises 
these  qualities.  The  virtue  of  an  agent  does  not  consist  in  the 
possession  of  the  moral  faculty  or  feeling,  but  in  the  possession 
of  the  qualities  at  which  it  looks,  and  of  which  it  approves.  We 
cannot  be  too  frequently  reminded  that  the  possession  of  con- 
science and  the  possession  of  virtue  are  two  different  things. 
Conscience  is  the  faculty,  or  feeling,  which,  on  contemplating 
the  voluntary  acts  of  responsible  beings,  proclaims  them  to  be 
virtuous  or  vicious ;  whereas  virtue  is  the  quality  or  the  quali- 


IN  ETHICAL  INQUIRY.  289 

ties  in  these  acts  which  call  forth  the  approbation  of  the  con- 
science. There  are  points  started  by  this  second  question,  the 
ultimate  resolution  of  which  seems  to  lie  beyond  human  capacity, 
but  it  is  possible,  we  think,  to  specify  the  qualities  which  must 
meet  in  virtuous  action  on  the  part  of  man. 

The  third  inquiry,  or  into  the  rule,  is  eminently  the  practical 
one.  It  falls  to  be  alluded  to  in  this  treatise,  merely  that  we 
may  distinguish  it  from  the  others,  and  conversely  point  out 
its  relation  to  them.  The  answer  to  the  question  will  be  found 
in  the  many  practical  treatises  on  the  duty  of  man. 

In  regard  to  the  fourth  question,  or  the  inquiry  into  the 
consequences  that  follow  virtue  and  vice,  it  is  of  importance  to 
separate  it  from  all  the  others.  It  is  indeed  of  vast  moment  to 
be  able  to  distinguish  between  the  qualities  which,  being  in  an 
action,  render  it  virtuous,  and  the  qualities  of  the  effects  that 
flow  from  it.  The  former  of  these  is  a  property  of  the  agent, 
but  the  latter  is  a  property,  not  so  much  of  the  agent,  as  of  the 
Divine  government. 

Illustrative  Note  (F.)-METHOD  OF  INQUIRY  IN  ETHICAL  SCIENCE. 

It  may  be  proper  to  explain  here  once  for  all,  that  we  profess  to  carry  on  the 
investigation  of  these  topics  in  the  spirit  and  after  the  manner  of  Lord  Bacon.  It 
is  certain  that  this  father  of  modern  science  meant  his  method  to  apply  to  the 
mental  as  well  as  the  material  sciences. — (Nov.  Org.,  lib.  i.,  Aph.  127.)  In  the  one 
branch  as  in  the  other,  there  should  be  an  orderly  observation  of  facts,  accom- 
panied by  analysis,  or,  as  Bacon  expresses,  the  "  necessary  exclusions"  of  things 
indifferent,  and  this  followed  up  by  a  process  of  generalization  in  which  we  seize 
on  the  points  of  agreement.  The  only  essential  difference  between  the  two  lies  in 
this,  that  in  the  one  we  take  the  senses,  and  in  the  other  consciousness,  as  our 
informant.  We  know  of  no  other  way  of  constructing  a  scientific  ethics  than  by 
commencing  at  least  with  an  inductive  investigation  of  the  facts,  with  the  view  of 
determining  the  necessary  laws  of  man's  moral  nature. 

True  it  is,  that  in  ethical  inquiry  we  have  finally  to  do,  not  with  quid  est,  but 
with  quid  oportet;  but  how  are  we  to  determine  the  quid  oportet  but  by  a  previous 
and  careful  examination  of  the  quid  est.  At  the  very  opening  of  such  an  investi- 
gation, a  thousand  false  views  present  themselves,  and  how  are  they  to  be  dis- 
pelled but  by  an  appeal  to  facts  attested  by  consciousness  ?  The  theories  as  to  the 
nature  of  virtue  differ  widely  from  each  other,  and  how  are  they  to  be  tested  but 
by  an  inquiry  into  the  nature  of  man?  The  nature  of  moral. principle  is  to  be 
ascertained — if  it  can  be  ascertained — by  an  investigation  of  man's  moral  con- 
stitution. 

It  is  all  true,  as  will  be  urged  in  opposition  to  this  inductive  method  of  inquiry, 
that  there  are  moral  principles  in  man's  nature  prior  to  all  experience.  And  this 
fact  should,  we  acknowledge,  keep  us  from  appealing  to  experience,  to  authorize 
principles,  which  are  rather  fitted  and  intended  to  sanction  experience.     But  this 


290  ILLUSTRATIVE  NOTE. 

does  not  at  all  settle  the  question  as  to  how  we  may  come  to  know  what  these 
principles  are,  so  as  to  be  entitled  to  use  them  in  ethical  science.  It  is  quite  true 
that  tbey  act  spontaneously  prior  to  and  apart  from  any  observation  of  their 
exercise,  but  we  are  not  at  liberty  to  make  a  reflex  use  of  them  till  we  have  care- 
fully determined  their  nature  as  a  matter  of  fact.  They  operate  a  priori  and 
independent  of  experience,  but  a  posteriori  investigation  of  our  experience  is 
necessary  in  order  to  the  detection  of  their  law  or  rule. 

Virtue  or  moral  good  is  not  natively  known  by  the  mind  as  an  abstract  or 
general  idea.  Nor  is  the  ethical  principle,  Avhich  we  acknowledge  to  be  in  our 
constitution,  before  the  consciousness  as  a  principle.  In  the  natural  progress  of 
knowledge,  physical  and  moral,  the  mind  begins  with  the  individual  and  the 
concrete,  and  by  these  it  reaches  the  general  and  the  abstract.  Just  as  no  man 
ever  yet  saw  a  law  of  nature — all  that  we  see  are  individual  facts  .falling  out 
according  to  law,  so  no  man  can  be  conscious  of  ethical  principle — all  that  he 
discovers  by  thednternal  sense  is  a  particular  decision  of  the  moral  power.  We 
arrive  at  a  knowledge  of  a  law  of  nature  by  the  generalization  of  the  facts  pre- 
sented to  the  senses,  and  we  can  attain  an  acquaintance  with  ethical  principle 
only  by  an  induction  of  the  facts  revealed  by  consciousness.  He  who  would  use 
natural  law  in  the  construction  of  physical  science,  must  be  prepared  to  enunciate 
its  nature  ;  and  the  same  condition  should  be  imposed  on  ethical  investigation 
— he  who  employs  moral  law  for  scientific  ends  must  be  ready  to  shew  what  is 
its»place  in  our  moral  constitution.  Not  only  so,  but  in  scientific  investigation  it 
is  required  that  we  categorically  declare  the  precise  rule  of  the  law  employed.  If 
we  proceed  to  rear  a  system  on  an  imperfectly  inducted  or  an  imperfectly  repre- 
sented law,  we  may  find  ourselves  landed  in  ever  increasing  errors  as  we  advance. 
The  astronomer,  for  example,  would  be  involved  in  ever  multiplying  blunders, 
provided  he  represented  the  law  of  gravitation  as  varying  inversely  according 
to  the  distance,  instead  of  the  square  of  the  distance.  But  moralists  are  landed 
in  far  more  serious  mistakes  when  they  set  out  with  a  wrong  or  even  a  muti- 
lated view  of  ethical  principle.  For  example,  errors  with  far-reaching  conse- 
quences spring  up,  when  it  is  affirmed  that  moral  good  is  merely  a  far-sighted 
self-love,  or  a  refined  love  of  happiness,  or  that  it  has  its  foundation  merely  in  the 
sentiments  of  the  percipient  mind,  for  we  cannot,  under  such  systems,  speak  of 
righteousness  as  an  essential  perfection  of  God.  But  mental  laws  when  thus 
inductively  determined  may  be  regarded  as  primary  principles,  sanctioned  by  the 
very  structure  of  the  mind  in  which  they  are  placed,  nay,  as  authorized  by  the 
God  of  truth  who  hath  planted  them  there,  and  may  be  subjected  to  intellectual 
analysis,  and  used  deductively  in  all  ethical  investigations.  We  may  now  con- 
struct an  ethical  philosophy  made  up  of  a  priori  principles,  but  these  ascertained 
by  a  posteriori  induction. 

Ethics  is  the  science  of  the  necessary  laws  of  our  moral  nature,  just  as  logic  is 
the  science  of  the  necessary  laws  of  our  thinking  nature.  In  both,  the  laws  are  in 
themselves  a  priori  and  independent  of  experience,  but  in  both  they  can  be  ascer- 
tained only  by  a  posteriori  induction.  We  have  indicated  the  grounds  which 
render  it  necessary  that  we  should  proceed  in  this  manner  ; — first,  there  are  no 
a  priori  ideas  before  the  mind  as  abstract  or  general  ideas  ;  and  secondly,  there 
are  no  a  priori  principles  before  the  consciousness  as  principles.  Hence  it  is, 
that  while  native  principles  of  thought  and  morality  operate  spontaneously,  we  are 
not  entitled  to  make  a  reflex  or  scientific  use  of  them  till  we  have  enunciated  their 
nature  and  rule  in  a  precise  formula.  This  distinction,  so  obvious  when  stated,  is 
lost  sight  of  altogether  in  those  a  priori  speculations  which  are  flooding  us  from 


INQUIRY  INTO  THE  NATURE  OF  CONSCIENCE.  291 

every  quarter.  Because  there  are  a  priori,  or,  as  we  should  prefer  calling  them, 
constitutional  principles  in  the  mind,  persons  seem  to  imagine  that  they  can  also 
find  out  their  nature  a  priori,  and  proceed  to  employ  them  in  system-building. 
On  such  grounds  as  these  we  reject  in  ethics,  not  a  priori  principles,  but  the 
a  priori  method  of  discovering  them. 

The  historical  method  of  inquiry  has  been  recommended  by  some,  as  by 
Schleiermacher,  with  whom  ethics  is  an  investigation  of  human  nature,  with  its 
forms  and  tendencies  developing  itself  in  history.  We  admit  that  history  supplies 
to  ethics  some  of  its  most  valuable  facts  and  illustrations ;  but  as  human  action 
is  always  presented  in  history  as  a  complex  web,  in  which  good  and  evil  are 
mixed  together,  it  is  needful  to  have  a  test  to  determine  which  is  the  one  and 
which  the  other.  We  are  thus  brought  back  to  the  inductive  investigation  of 
man's  moral  constitution  as  the  only  method  of  constructing  a  scientific  ethics. 

We  are  speaking  throughout  of  the  science  of  ethics.  For  the  purposes  of 
practical  morality,  it  is  not  needful  to  determine  the  nature  of  ethical  principles ; 
for  these  principles  operate  spontaneously,  and  act  best  when  we  are  not  thinking 
of  them  but  are  simply  desiring  to  do  what  is  right.  So  far  as  we  need  prac- 
tical rules,  these  may  best  be  learned  from  the  Word  of  God  and  treatises  founded 
upon  it.  But  the  Scriptures,  their  aim  being  practical,  do  not  give  us  ethical 
any  more  than  physical  or  metaphysical  science.  Doubtless  the  holy  and  heavenly 
morality  there  unfolded,  and,  above  all,  the  perfect  exemplar  of  the  character  of 
Jesus,  are  useful — nay,  I  believe,  necessary  means  of  enabling  us  to  rise  to  a 
perfect  idea  of  the  morally  good.  The  Bible  doctrines  of  the  atonement  and  of 
grace  are  needed  to  help  ethical  inquiry  out  of  the  difficulty  which  originates  in 
the  existence  of  sin — a  fact  very  much  ignored  by  secular  moralists.  Still  there 
is  a  scientific  basis  furnished  to  ethics  in  the  laws  of  our  moral  constitution.  So 
far  as  it  is  founded  on  real  facts,  such  a  science  cannot  possibly  lead  to  error, 
while  it  will  be  found  to  supply  not  a  few  valuable  contributions  to  the  Christian 
evidences.  An  inductive  inquiry  into  man's  moral  nature  proves  that  it  is  faith- 
fully described  in  God's  Word,  and  that  there  is  a  beautiful  adaptation  in  the 
Gospel  remedy  to  the  wants  of  humanity. 


SECT.  IV. — INQUIRY  INTO  THE  NATURE  OF  CONSCIENCE,  OR  THE 
MENTAL  FACULTY  OR  FEELING  WHICH  RECOGNISES  AND  REVEALS 
THE  DISTINCTION  BETWEEN  RIGHT  AND  WRONG. 

We  now  take  up  the  first  of  the  four  special  topics  which  fall 
to  be  discussed  in  treating  of  God's  moral  government,  or,  in. 
other  words,  we  go  on  to  inquire  what  is  the  mental  state  or 
process  by  which  the  distinction  between  good  and  evil  is  dis- 
covered and  manifested  ? 

Let  us  begin  with  taking  a  passing  survey  of  the  mode  of  the 
operation  of  the  human  mind  when  different  classes  of  objects 
are  presented  before  it  Let  us  first  view  it  as  acting  when  a 
proposition  of  a  purely  intellectual  character  is  submitted  to  i 
any  of  the  propositions,  for  instance,  of  geometry. 


292  INQUIRY  INTO  THE  NATURE  OF  CONSCIENCE. 

On  any  one  of  these  propositions  being  brought  under  its 
notice,  it  pronounces  a  decision  regarding  it,  and  the  language  in 
which  we  express  the  decision  is,  "  It  is  true,"  or,  "  It  is  false.5'" 
Now,  in  pronouncing  this  decision,  the  mind  proceeds  on  its  own 
laws  or  principles — principles  which  are  fundamental,  and  as 
incapable  of  analysis  as  the  simple  elements  to  which  chemistry 
at  last  conducts  us  in  the  analysis  of  corporeal  substances. 

It  is  a  favourite  doctrine  of  Aristotle,  the  great  analyst  of  the 
reasoning  process,  that  everything  cannot  be  demonstrated,  and 
that  the  beginning  of  demonstration  must  be  intuition  *  All 
reasoning  carries  us  back  to  certain  first  principles.  In  saying 
so,  we  mean  that  in  the  analysis  of  it  we  are  conducted  at  last 
to  truths  which  admit  of  no  demonstration.  Properly  speaking, 
reasoning  does  not  carry  us  back  to  these  axiomatic  truths — it 
proceeds  upon  them.  These  principles  have  at  no  time  a 
separate  existence  as  notions  in  the  mind,  at  least  until  it  begin 
to  form  reflex  metaphysical  abstractions.  The  conception  of 
them  is  one  of  the  most  refined  and  difficult  exercises  in  which 
the  mind  can  engage,  and  the  correct  expression  of  them  one  of 
the  most  arduous  works  about  which  human  language  can  be 
employed.  The  reason  proceeds  on  these  axiomatic  principles, 
just  as  the  eye  sees  by  means  of  rays  of  light ;  and  neither  takes 
cognizance  of  the  media  needful  for  its  exercise.  It  is  by  a 
reflex  act  of  the  mind,  and  that  a  very  subtle  one,  that  the 
philosopher  is  led  to  discover  what  is  the  nature  of  the  funda- 
mental principles  imposed  upon,  or  rather  forming  part  of,  the 
very  faculties  of  the  human  mind.  They  are  roots  or  radicals 
supporting  all  visible  truth,  but  themselves  unseen,  and  only  to 
be  discovered  by  artificially  digging  into  the  depths  which  they 
penetrate,  and  which  cover  them  from  the  view. 

All  modern  philosophers  of  authority  have  acknowledged  that 
there  are  such  fundamental  principles.  Locke  denied  them  in 
theory,  but  confessed  their  existence  in  fact  under  the  name  of 
intuitions.  Kant  expounds  them  as  the  categories  of  the  under- 
standing, and  the  ideas  of  pure  reason.  Keid  ealls  them  the 
u principles  of  the  communis  sensits"  very  unhappily  translated 
by  a  name  usually  differently  applied — common  sense.  Stewart 
denominates  them  the  "laws  of  human  thought  or  belief." 
Brown  speaks  of  them  as  the  primary  universal  intuitions  of 
*  See  Post.  Anal.,  B.  i.  en.  iii.,  &e. 


INQUIKY  INTO  THE  NATURE  OF  CONSCIENCE.  293 

direct  belief.  Cousin  talks  of  them  as  simple  mental  apercep- 
tions  and  primitive  judgments.  Mackintosh,  in  referring  to 
them,  says — "  They  seem  to  be  accurately  described  as  notions 
which  cannot  be  conceived  separately,  but  without  which  nothing 
can  be  conceived.  They  are  not  only  necessary  to  reasoning  and 
belief,  but  to  thought  itself."  Mackintosh  elsewhere  represents 
them  as  "  the  indispensable  conditions  of  thought  itself."  It  is  to 
them,  as  we  apprehend,  that  Whewell  refers  under  the  phrase 
"fundamental  ideas,"  so  often  employed  by  him.  Sir. William 
Hamilton  has  completed  all  past  metaphysics  on  this  subject,  by 
showing  that  the  argument,  from  the  principles  of  common  sense, 
is  one  strictly  philosophic  and  scientific,  and  by  a  critical  review 
of  the  nomenclature,  all  proceeding  on  the  same  principle,  which 
has  been  employed  by  upwards  of  one  hundred  of  the  profoundest 
thinkers  in  ancient  and  modern  times.*  It  is  very  interesting  to 
observe  how  deep  and  earnest  thinkers  come  at  last  to  a  wonder- 
ful agreement,  even  when  they  appear,  to  superficial  observers, 
to  have  no  one  principle  in  common. 

There  are  such  principles  pre-supposed,  where  the  mind  is 
employed  intellectually,  as  when  we  argue,  an  effect  must  have 
a  cause.  There  are  also  such  fundamental  laws  implied  in  the 
exercise  of  the  mind  when  contemplating  the  voluntary  acts  of 
responsible  agents.  When  these  pass  in  review  before  the  mind, 
it  declares  regarding  them,  that  "  they  are  good,"  or  that  "  they 
are  bad,"  and  it  does  so  according  to  a  principle  which  cannot 
be  resolved  into  anything  simpler  than  itself. 

There  is  a  very  general  agreement  in  the  present  day,  as  to 
the  marks  by  which  intuitive  principles  may  be  distinguished : 
they  are  necessity  and  universality.  Moral  principle  can  stand 
both  these  tests. when  they  are  properly  understood.  The  mind 
is  constrained  to  believe  that  there  is  a  distinction  between 
justice  and  injustice,  between  right  and  wrong.  It  is  not  that 
moral  principle  is  necessarily  obeyed,  for  it  is  ever  neglected  in 
practice,  and  constantly  disobeyed — still  it  is  there  in  the  bosom, 
asserting  its  claims  and  ready  to  condemn  transgression.  All 
men  possess  conscience,  just  as  all  men  possess  reason.  Though 
there  are  persons  in  whom  the  former,  like  the  latter,  may  be 
very  much  in  a  state  of  dormancy,  or  confined  within  very  narrow 
limits,  and  engaged  about  comparatively  trivial  objects ;  still 
*  See  Note  A.  appended  to  Hamilton's  edition  of  Reid's  Works. 


294  INQUIRY  INTO  THE  NATURE  OF  CONSCIENCE. 

both  are  there  and  capable  of  being  excited  and  cultivated.  It 
is  not  that  moral  principle  is  universally  submitted  to,  for,  in  fact, 
it  is  universally  rejected,  but  still  it  is  in  all  men — when  it  serves 
no  other  end — as  a  law  to  condemn  them,  so  that  "  they  are 
without  excuse." 

Should  any  party  insist  on  our  resolving  this  intuitive  princi- 
ple, we  remind  him,  that  in  doing  so  we  could  only  be  reducing 
it  to  a  farther  principle,  and  that  he  might,  on  the  same  ground, 
ask  us  to  resolve  that  law  also,  and,  as  he  thus  pushed  us,  we 
must  at  length  be  carried  back  to  a  principle  which  could  not 
be  reduced  to  anything  simpler,  and  which  we  must  therefore 
just  assume.  Now,  we  assert  at  once,  that  it  is  by  an  original 
principle  that  the  mind  decides,  when  voluntary  acts  pass  under 
its  notice,  that  they  are  right,  or  that  they  are  wrong.  It  seems 
evident  to  us,  on  the  one  hand,  that  it  cannot  be  resolved  into 
any  of  those  intellectual  axioms  on  which  the  understanding  pro- 
ceeds in  acquiring  knowledge.  Compound  and  decompound 
these  as  we  please,  they  never  will  lead  to  the  idea  of  right  and 
wrong.  Nor,  on  the  other  hand,  can  it  be  reduced  to  those 
principles  which  are  connected  with  the  desire  of  pleasure,  or 
the  aversion  to  pain.  No  composition  of  such  ideas  or  feelings 
could  produce  the  idea  or  feeling  expressed  in  the  words  "  ought/' 
"duty,"  "moral  obligation,"  "desert,"  "guilt."  As  well,  in  our 
view,  might  we  talk  of  a  combination  of  gases,  or  of  any  other 
corporeal  substance,  producing  an  idea,  as  of  mere  intellectual 
ideas,  or  mere  emotions  connected  with  the  sensations  of  plea- 
sure and  pain,  producing  a  sense  of  moral  obligation.  Even  as 
no  composition  of  colours  can  produce  sound,  and  no  composi- 
tion of  odours  produce  colours,  so,  as  it  appears  to  us,  no  possible 
combination  of  intellectual  conceptions,  or  sensations  of  pleasure 
and  pain,  or  of  the  desires  connected  with  these,  can  produce 
moral  approbation  and  disapprobation. 

We  are  thus  brought  to  the  conclusion,  that  the  mind  declares 
that  there  is  an  indelible  distinction  between  good  and  evil  ;  just 
as  it  declares  that  there  is  an  indelible  distinction  between  truth 
and  error.  We  believe  that  the  mind,  in  the  one  case  as  in  the 
other,  proceeds  on  its  own  fundamental  principles.  Does  some 
one  insist  on  our  making  this  moral  idea  patent  to  the  intellect, 
and  justifying  it  to  the  understanding  ?  We  reply,  that  the 
distinction  does  not  come  under  the  cognizance  of  the  under- 


INQUIKY  INTO  THE  NATURE  OF  CONSCIENCE.  295 

standing,  any  more  than  the  difference  of  sounds  can  be  brought 
under  the  discernment  of  the  eye,  or  the  difference  of  colours 
under  that  of  the  ear.  Should  the  objector  become  proud  and 
presumptuous,  and  insist  on  our  yielding  to  his  demand,  we  ask 
him  to  begin  with  demonstrating  the  axiomatic  principles  on 
which  reason  proceeds ;  and  when  he  has  done  so,  he  may  be 
the  better  prepared  to  try  his  skill  upon  an  analysis  of  ethical 
law,  or  rather,  after  having  made  the  attempt  and  failed,  he  will 
the  more  readily  acknowledge  that  there  may  be  moral  principles, 
the  existence  of  which  reason  may  discover,  but  cannot  possibly 
explain. 

Call  them  by  what  name  you  please,  you  come  back  in  all 
inquiry  after  truth  to  principles  which  reason  cannot  demonstrate, 
but  on  which,  on  the  contrary,  all  reasoning  proceeds.  To  deny 
this  is  to  involve  ourselves  in  the  absurdity  of  an  infinite  series 
of  proofs,  each  hanging  on  the  other,  with  nothing  to  support 
them  or  on  which  to  rest,  or  in  a  circle  of  proof  in  which  there 
is  connexion,  but  no  origin  or  foundation,  and  no  progress.  In 
like  manner,  in  the  inquiry  into  virtue  and  vice,  we  come  back 
to  ultimate  principles,  on  which  all  morality  rests.  Just  as  the 
former  class  of  principles  are  anterior  in  the  order  of  things  to 
all  exercise  of  the  reasoning  faculties,  so  the  latter  are  anterior 
to  every  given  exercise  of  the  conscience. 

To  justify  any  given  proposition  to  the  reason,  we  have  only 
to  show  how  it  is  built  on  the  fundamental  principles  of  reason. 
This  being  done,  reason  makes  no  farther  inquiry — it  is  now 
completely  satisfied.  The  scepticism  which  insists  on  something 
farther  is  not  sanctioned  by  reason,  but  rather  requires  to  set 
itself  against  reason,  and  reason  in  all  its  acts  condemns  it.  In 
like  manner,  the  mind  is  satisfied  when  you  have  shown  that  an 
action  is  reconcilable  with  the  fundamental  principles  of  morality. 
When  this  is  done,  it  asks  no  more  questions.  If  farther  in- 
quiries are  made,  it  does  not  beat  responsive  to  them — indeed, 
it  cannot  so  much  as  comprehend  them. 

While  the  intellect  and  its  fundamental  principles,  and  the 
conscience  with  its  fundamental  principles,  are  in  many  respects 
analogous  to,  yet  they  are  at  the  same  time  independent  of,  one 
another.  The  understanding  does  not  feel  that  it  is  called  to 
justify  itself  to  the  conscience,  nor  is  the  conscience  required  to 
justify  itself  to  the  understanding.     Each  has  its  own  assigned 


296  INQUIRY  INTO  THE  NATURE  OF  CONSCIENCE. 

province,  in  which  it  is  sovereign  and  supreme.  A  thousand 
errors  have  arisen  from  imagining  that  the  conscience  should 
give  account  of  itself  to  the  understanding,  and  that  the  under- 
standing should  give  account  of  itself  to  the  conscience.  Each 
has  its  own  sphere,  and  cannot  in  that  sphere  interfere  with  or 
clash  with  the  other.  While  independent  in  themselves,  they 
must,  however,  as  residing  in  the  same  mind,  and  frequently 
judging  of  different  qualities  of  the  same  concrete  object,  have 
multiplied  points  of  affinity. 

The  conscience  may  be  profitably  viewed  under  three  aspects : — 
First,  as  proceeding  upon  and  revealing  a  law  with 
authoritative  obligations.  Every  intuitive  principle  in  our 
constitution  has  its  special  truth  to  reveal  and  sanction,  and 
this  is  to  be  ascertained  by  a  careful  induction  of  its  individual 
exercises.  What  then  does  the  moral  power  in  man  say,  when 
we  accurately  interpret  its  dicta  ?  This  seems  to  be  its  pecu- 
liarity, that  it  declares  what  ought  and  what  ought  not  to  be. 
This  is  its  very  nature  and  function,  to  point  to,  and  announce 
a  law  demanding  obedience.  In  this  respect  it  is  a  faculty  sui 
generis,  different  from  every  other  principle  of  the  mind.  It  is 
not  a  law  merely  in  the  sense  in  which  the  fundamental  prin- 
ciples at  the  basis  of  the  intellectual  powers  are  laws,  but  in  a 
peculiar  sense  applicable  to  nothing  else.  Its  office  is  to  declare 
not  what  is,  but  what  ought  to  be.  Its  mood  is  not  the  indica- 
tive, like  the  reason,  nor  the  conditional,  like  the  understanding, 
nor  the  optative,  like  the  will,  but  the  imperative.  Other  powers 
approve  of  truth,  but  this  of  virtue  ;  others  guard  us  from  error, 
but  this  from  crime.  It  sits  on  a  throne  like  a  king,  its  rules 
are  obligations,  its  affirmations  are  statutes,  its  proclamations 
are  enactments.  It  sits  in  judgment  as  a  judicature,  and  its 
decisions  are  commands,  its  sentences  are  condemnations,  its 
smiles  are  rewards,  and  its  frowns  are  reproofs.  It  asserts  not 
power,  but  claims,  which  affirm  their  superiority  to  power.  It 
sets  forth  not  might  but  right,  which  in  its  nature  is  above 
might.  It  often  says  of  what  is,  that  it  should  not  be,  and  of 
what  is  not,  that  it  should  be.  It  frequently  lends  its  counte- 
nance to  what  is  most  despised  among  mankind,  and  pronounces 
a  sentence  of  disapproval  on  that  which  is  most  highly  esteemed. 
It  is  not  afraid  to  attack  power  in  high  places,  while  it  will 
espouse  and  defend  the  cause  of  the  persecuted  and  the  helpless. 


INQUIRY  INTO  THE  NATURE  OF  CONSCIENCE.  297 

ft  rests  on  its  own  prerogatives,  and  it  wears  the  crown  and 
wields  the  sceptre,  whether  its  claims  are  acknowledged  or  denied. 

Many  of  the  ancients  delighted  to  contemplate  the  moral 
power  under  this  aspect,  as,  for  example,  Cicero,  in  the  well 
known  passage, — "  Eight  reason  is  itself  a  law  congenial  to  the 
feelings  of  nature,  diffused  among  all  men,  uniform,  eternal, 
calling  us  imperiously  to  our  duty,  and  peremptorily  prohibiting 
every  violation  of  it."  "  Nor  does  it  speak  one  language  at 
Konie  and  another  at  Athens,  varying  from  place  to  place,  or 
from  time  to  time ;  but  it  addresses  itself  to  all  nations,  and  to 
all  ages,  deriving  its  authority  from  the  common  Sovereign  of  the 
universe,  and  carrying  home  its  sanctions  to  every  breast  by  the 
inevitable  punishment  which  it  inflicts  on  transgressors."  It  is 
under  this  same  view  that  it  is  presented  to  us  by  a  still  higher 
authority.  "  They  who  have  no  law,  (no  written  law,)  are  a 
law  unto  themselves,  which  show  the  law  written  in  their  hearts." 
It  is  under  the  same  aspect  that  it  is  presented  by  the  profound 
German  metaphysician  Kant,  when  he  calls  it  the  categorical 
imperative,  whose  absolute  rule  is,  Act  according  to  a  maxim 
which  would  admit  of  being  regarded  as  a  general  law  for  all 
acting  beings.  So  far  as  the  mind  listens  to  this  inward  moni- 
tor, it  declares  that  virtue  never  can  be  vice,  nor  vice  virtue ; 
that  there  cannot  be  a  state  of  things  in  which  deceit  is  good 
and  justice  evil.  The  distinction  between  right  and  wrong  is  not 
a  mere  personal  conviction  ;  we  feel  that  it  holds  good  not  only 
for  ourselves,  but  for  others,  for  all  intelligent  and  moral  beings. 

Not  only  is  this  principle  in  the  mind,  but  it  has,  as  Butler 
has  shown,  an  authoritative  place  there.  "  Thus  that  principle 
by  which  we  survey,  and  either  approve  or  disapprove  of  our 
own  heart,  temper,  and  actions,  is  not  only  to  be  considered  as 
what  in  its  turn  is  to  have  some  influence,  which  may  be  said  of 
every  passion  of  the  lowest  appetite,  but  as  from  its  very  nature 
manifestly  claiming  superiority  over  all  others,  insomuch  that 
you  cannot  form  a  notion  of  this  faculty,  conscience,  without 
taking  in  judgment,  direction,  superintendency.  This  is  a  con- 
stituent part  of  the  idea,  that  is,  of  the  faculty  itself;  and  to 
preside  and  govern,  from  the  very  economy  and  constitution  of 
man,  belongs  to  it.  Had  it  strength  as  it  has  right,  had  it  power 
as  it  has  authority,  it  would  absolutely  govern  the  world."*    He 

*  Human  Nature,  Sermon  ii. 


298  INQUIRY  INTO  THE  NATURE  OF  CONSCIENCE. 

adds,  "  This  faculty  was  placed  within,  to  be  our  proper  gover- 
nor, to  direct  and  regulate  all  under  principles,  passions,  and 
motives  of  action.  This  is  its  right  and  office.  Thus  sacred  is 
its  authority."  It  is  the  highest  judicatory  in  the  mind  of  man, 
admitting  of  appeal  from  all,  and  admitting  of  appeal  from  itself 
to  no  other  human  tribunal.  Eeviewing  the  exercise  of  all  the 
other  faculties  and  affections  of  the  mind,  it  is  subject  only  to 
the  immutable  law  to  which  it  looks,  and  to  God,  whose  righteous 
character  is  embodied  and  represented  in  that  law. 

For  though  supreme  within  the  mind,  the  conscience  does  not 
look  upon  itself  as  absolutely  supreme.  While  it  is  the  con- 
science which  informs  us  what  moral  principle  is,  it  is  not  the 
conscience  which  constitutes  moral  principle.  In  this  respect  it 
resembles  the  senses  and  the  intellect,  and  hence  may  be  called 
the  moral  sense  and  the  moral  reason.  The  senses  do  not 
create  the  objects  which  they  perceive,  nor  does  the  intellect 
create  the  truths  which  it  apprehends ;  and  just  as  little  does 
the  moral  faculty  in  man  create  the  law  to  which  it  looks,  and 
which  it  makes  known  to  him.  The  sun  exists  in  these  heavens, 
whether  there  be  an  eye  to  look  to  it  or  not :  two  parallel  lines 
could  never  meet,  even  though  there  should  never  be  a  mind  to 
contemplate  their  relation  ;  and  moral  law  would  be  imperative, 
whether  the  conscience  did  or  did  not  acknowledge  the  obliga- 
tion. This  is  what  conscience  reveals  of  itself;  this  is  implied 
in  all  its  decisions,  when  rightly  interpreted.  It  declares  that 
the  distinction  between  good  and  evil  does  not  proceed  from  the 
caprice,  but  is  written  on  the  very  constitution  of  the  mind ;  and 
farther,  that  it  does  not  spring  from  the  structure  of  the  indivi- 
dual mind,  but  must  exist  for  all  beings  possessed  of  intelligence 
and  free  will.  It  points  to  a  law  prior  to  itself,  above  itself, 
independent  of  itself,  universal,  unchangeable,  and  eternal. 

The  conscience  is  not  the  law  itself,  it  is  merely  the  organ 
which  makes  it  known  to  us — the  eye  that  looks  to  it.*  Alas, 
that  eye  may  become  diseased,  and  fail  to  take  the  proper  view 
of  the  law.  Under  the  influence  of  a  rebellious  will,  it  may 
become  corrupted,  equally  with  the  understanding,  or  the  emo- 

*  This  is  a  view  to  some  extent  overlooked  by  Butler,  and  by  some  otherwise 
elevated  ethical  writers,  who  look  at  the  moral  power  from  a  psychological  stand- 
point. We  frankly  confess,  that  though  it  was  before  us,  it  was  not  so  with  suf- 
ficient steadiness,  in  the  earlier  editions  of  this  work. 


INQUIKY  INTO  THE  NATURE  OF  CONSCIENCE.  299 

tions,  or  any  other  part  of  our  nature.  When  thus  failing  to 
perform  its  proper  functions,  no  attempt  should  be  made  to  set 
it  aside,  to  nullify  or  destroy  it,  any  more  than  the  reason  should 
be  dismissed  because  it  is  liable  to  error,  but  pains  should  be 
taken  to  quicken,  to  elevate,  to  restore  it.  That  it  may  become 
deranged,  through  the  influence  of  a  corrupted  will,  that  it  may 
be  restored  to  pristine  purity,  through  the  atonement  provided 
for  transgression,  and  the  grace  of  God, — these  are  topics  which 
will  fall  to  be  discussed  as  we  proceed.  Meanwhile,  we  call 
attention  to  the  fact,  that  the  conscience  looks  to  a  law  above  it, 
as  the  sun  is  above  the  eye  to  which  its  light  comes. 

Not  only  so,  but  the  mind  is  led  to  connect  this  law  with  God 
as  lawgiver.  In  the  opening  of  this  treatise  we  have  said,  that 
the  idea  of  God  is  pressed  on  the  mind  from  a  variety  of  quar- 
ters. The  order  and  adaptation  of  nature  suggest  a  designing 
mind.  The  law-revealer  in  the  breast  also  proclaims  a  lawgiver. 
Some  go  so  far  as  to  maintain  that  all  this  is  implied  in  the  very 
nature  of  the  law — that  a  law  without  a  lawgiver  would  be  null, 
would  be  meaningless.  This  sense  of  responsibility,  they  say, 
implies  a  being  to  whom  we  must  give  an  account ;  this  senti- 
ment of  fear  tells  of  one  who  may  punish.  Of  this  we  are  firmly 
convinced,  that  when  we  are  led  to  believe  in  the  existence  of  a 
living  God,  on  the  abundant  evidence  supplied  on  all  hands,  we 
are  also  led  to  trace  the  moral  law  up  to  him.  As  soon  as  we 
admit  that  man  is  a  created  being,  and  that  there  is  a  God  who 
made  him,  the  conscience  points  to  him  as  sanctioning  and  ap- 
pointing the  moral  law.  We  cannot  conceive  of  a  faculty  dis- 
tinguishing between  good  and  evil,  planted  in  our  constitutions 
by  one  himself  devoid  of  integrity.  We  must  believe  that  God 
approves  of  the  justice  and  benevolence  which  the  moral  power 
would  lead  us  to  commend,  and  disapproves  of  the  sin  wdiich  it 
prompts  us  to  condemn.  Tracing  up  the  law  to  him,  we  are  led 
to  look  on  him  as  its  Giver,  its  Guardian,  and  its  Executor. 
That  law  is  seen  to  represent  his  moral  nature,  with  which  it 
may  be  identified.  In  obeying  it,  we  feel  that  we  are  pleasing 
him  ;  in  disobeying  it,  we  feci  that  we  are  giving  him  offence. 

Secondly,  conscience  may  be  considered  as  pronouncing 
an  authoritative  judgment  upon  actions  presented  to  it. 
This  is  an  aspect  not  inconsistent  with  that  under  which  we  have 
just  been  contemplating  it.     This  moral  law  has  an  exponent  in 


SOO  INQUIRY  INTO  THE  NATURE  OF  CONSCIENCE. 

the  mind  to  act  as  an  arbiter  and  judge,  and  pronounce  decisions 
on  the  cases  submitted  to  it.  In  this  respect — that  is,  so  far  as 
it  judges  and  decides — it  is  analogous  to  the  intellect  or  reason. 
Some  later  ethical  and  metaphysical  writers,  we  are  aware, 
have  maintained  that  there  is  no  judgment  passed  by  the  mind 
on  moral  qualities  being  presented  to  it.  The  whole  mental 
process  is  represented  as  being  one  of  the  emotions,  and  not  ot 
the  judgment  or  reason.  And  it  is  at  once  to  be  acknowledged, 
that  if  we  define  the  reason  or  understanding  as  the  power  which 
distinguishes  between  the  true  and  the  false,  or  which  discovers 
relations,  as  of  the  resemblances  and  differences  of  objects,  we 
must  place  morality  altogether  beyond  its  jurisdiction.  Percep- 
tions of  this  kind  are  in  their  whole  nature  different  from  the 
perceptions  of  the  difference  between  right  and  wrong — between 
duty  and  sin.  But  if  it  be  meant  to  affirm,  that  when  the  volun- 
tary acts  of  responsible  beings  pass  in  review  before  the  mind,  it 
does  not  pronounce  a  judgment  or  decision,  then  we  cannot  but 
hold  the  view  to  be  inconsistent  with  our  consciousness,  and  as  far 
from  being  well  fitted  to  furnish  a  foundation  to  a  proper  ethical 
theory.  Just  as  the  mind,  on  certain  purely  intellectual  propo- 
sitions being  presented  to  it,  says,  "  This  is  true,"  or  "  This  is 
false ;"  so  we  find  it,  on  the  voluntary  actions  of  intelligent  beings 
being  presented  to  it,  declaring,  "This  is  right,"  or  "This  is 


wrong. 


The  parties  who  are  most  inclined  to  remove  morality  from  the 
region  of  the  understanding,  such  as  Brown  and  Mackintosh,  are 
often  constrained  to  speak  of  the  moral  faculty,  and  to  talk  of  its 
decisions  and  judgments.  The  very  language  which  they  use,  in 
speaking  of  the  emotions  which  are  supposed  by  them  to  consti- 
tute the  whole  mental  process — the  emotions,  as  they  call  them, 
of  moral  approbation  and  disapprobation — seems  to  imply  that 
there  must  be  a  judgment  of  the  mind.  If  approbation  and  dis- 
approbation are  not  judgments,  we  know  not  what  can  constitute 
a  judgment  of  the  mind.  "  We  cannot,"  says  Butler,  "form  a 
notion  of  this  faculty,  without  taking  in  judgment."*  Nor  is  it 
possible  to  find  language  expressive  of  the  mental  phenomena 
which  does  not  imply  that,  along  with  the  emotion,  there  is  a 
judgment  come  to  and  a  decision  pronounced  ;  and  it  would  be 
confounding  the  different  departments  of  the  human  mind  alto- 

*  Human  Nature,  Sermon  ii. 


INQUIRY  INTO  THE  NATUEE  OF  CONSCIENCE.  301 

getlier  to  refer  such  a  judgment  to  our  emotional  nature,  or  mere 
sensibility. 

We  apprehend  a  mathematical  proposition,  and  we  declare  it  to 
be  true-;  here  there  is  acknowledged  on  all  hands  to  be  a  judg- 
ment. We  apprehend  next  instant  a  cruel,  ungenerous  action  ; 
and  we  declare  it  to  be  wrong.  Now,  in  the  one  case,  as  in  the 
other,  there  is  a  judgment  of  the  mind.  It  is  true,  that  in  the 
two  cases,  the  judgments  are  pronounced  according  to  very 
different  principles  or  laws — so  very  different  as  to  justify  us  in 
speaking  of  the  conscience  as  different  from  the  reason.  It  is 
quite  conceivable  that  the  mind  might  possess  reason,  and  distin- 
guish between  the  true  and  the  false,  and  yet  be  incapable  of  dis- 
tinguishing between  virtue  and  vice.  We  are  entitled,  therefore, 
to  maintain,  that  the  drawing  of  moral  distinctions  is  not  compre- 
hended in  the  simple  exercise  of  the  reason.  The  conscience,  in 
short,  is  a  different  faculty  of  the  mind  from  the  mere  under- 
standing. We  must  hold  it  to  be  simple  and  unresolvable,  till  we 
fall  in  with  a  successful  decomposition  of  it  into  its  elements.  In 
the  absence  of  any  such  decomposition,  we  hold  that  there  are  no 
simpler  elements  in  the  human  mind  which  will  yield  us  the  ideas 
of  the  morally  good  and  evil,  of  moral  obligation  and  guilt,  of 
merit  and  demerit.  Compound  and  decompound  all  other  ideas 
as  you  please — associate  them  together  as  you  may — they  will 
never  give  us  the  ideas  referred  to,  so  peculiar  and  full  of  meaning, 
without  a  faculty  implanted  in  the  mind  for  this  very  purpose.* 

This  faculty  has  to  do  with  a  particular  class  of  objects,  in 
regard  to  which  it  judges  and  pronounces  a  decision.  "  There 
is  a  principle  of  reflection,"  says  Butler,  "  in  men,  by  which  they 
distinguish  between,  approve  and  disapprove  of,  their  own  actions. 
We  are  plainly  constituted  such  sort  of  creatures  as  to  reflect 
on  our  own  nature.  The  mind  can  take  a  view  of  what  passes 
within  itself,  its  propensions,  aversions,  passions,  affections,  as 

*  Sir  James  Mackintosh  (in  the  Preliminary  Dissertation  to  the  Encyclopaedia 
Britannica)  thinks  that  the  phenomena  of  conscience  can  be  accounted  for  by  the 
association  of  ideas.  We  meet  this  theory  with  the  important  principle,  overlooked 
by  not  a  few  in  reference  to  other  matters  on  which  it  bears,  that  association  of 
ideas  is  the  mere  law  of  the  succession  of  ideas,  and  cannot  give  a  new  idea,  with- 
out a  separate  faculty  for  the  purpose.  Had  Mackintosh  fully  unfolded  his  theory, 
we  suspect  that  it  would  at  once  have  been  seen,  that  we  must  have  a  principle  to 
account  for  the  idea  itself,  as  well  as  to  account  for  the  way  in  which  it  is  connected 
with  other  ideas. 


302  INQUIRY  INTO  THE  NATURE  OF  CONSCIENCE. 

respecting  such  objects,  and  in  such  degrees,  and  of  the  several 
actions  consequent  thereupon.  In  this  survey,  it  approves  of 
one,  disapproves  of  another,  and  towards  a  third  is  affected  in 
neither  of  these  ways,  but  is  quite  indifferent.  This  principle 
in  man,  by  which  he  approves  or  disapproves  of  his  heart, 
temper,  and  actions,  is  conscience — for  this  is  the  strict  sense  of 
the  word,  though  sometimes  it  is  used  so  as  to  take  in  more."* 
This  greatest  of  all  ethical  writers  tells  us  farther — "  There  is 
a  superior  principle  of  reflection  or  conscience  in  every  man, 
which  distinguishes  between  the  internal  principles  of  his  heart, 
as  well  as  his  external  actions,  which  passes  judgment  upon  him- 
self, and  upon  them  pronounces  determinately  some  actions  to 
be  in  themselves  just,  right,  good,  others  to  be  in  themselves 
evil,  wrong,  unjust,  which,  without  being  consulted,  without 
being  advised  with,  magisterially  exerts  itself,  and  disapproves 
or  condemns  him,  the  doer  of  them,  accordingly,  and  which,  if 
not  forcibly  stopped,  naturally  and  always,  of  course,  goes  on  to 
anticipate  a  higher  and  more  effectual  sentence  which  shall  here- 
after second  and  affirm  its  own.""J" 

Thirdly,  Conscience  may  be  considered  as  possessing  a 
class  of  emotions,  or  as  a  sentiment.  We  have  endeavoured, 
indeed,  to  show  that  it  is  not  a  mere  emotion,  or  class  of  emotions. 
But  while  it  is  something  more  than  a  "class  of  feelings" — it  is 
so  described  by  Mackintosh — it  does  most  assuredly  contain  and 
imply  feelings.  The  mind  is  as  conscious  of  the  emotions  as  it 
is  of  the  judgment. 

In  opposition  to  those  who  insist  that  there  is  nothing  but 
emotion,  it  might  be  urged  in  a  general  way,  that  emotions 
never  exist  independently  of  certain  conceptions  or  ideas.  Let 
a  man  stop  himself  at  the  time  when  emotion  is  the  highest, 
when  passion  is  the  strongest,  and  he  will  find,  as  the  substratum 
of  the  whole,  a  mental  apprehension  or  representation  of  an  ob- 
ject. There  is  an  idea  acting  as  the  basis  of  every  feeling,  and 
so  far  determining  the  feeling;  and  the  feeling  rises  or  falls 
according  as  the  conception  takes  in  more  or  less  of  that  which 
raises  the  emotions.  The  ideas  which  raise  emotions  have  been 
called  (by  Alison  in  his  Essay  on  Taste)  "  ideas  of  emotions." 

*  Human  Nature,  Sermon  i. 

f  Human  Nature,  Sermon  ii.  An  analysis  of  the  decisions  of  the  conscience  will 
be  found  in  sec.  i.  of  the  next  chapter  of  this  treatise. 


INQUIRY  INTO  THE  NATURE  OF  CONSCIENCE.  303 

The  conception  of  certain  objects  is  no  way  fitted  to  raise 
emotions.  The  conception,  for  instance,  of  an  angle,  of  a  stone, 
or  of  a  house,  will  not  excite  any  emotions  whatever.  Other 
conceptions  do  as  certainly  raise  emotions,  as  the  conception  of 
an  object  as  about  to  communicate  pleasure  or  pain.  Such 
feelings  arise,  whether  we  contemplate  this  pleasure  or  pain  as 
about  to  visit  ourselves  or  otbers. 

Emotion  rises  not  only  on  the  contemplation  of  pleasure  and 
pain  to  ourselves  or  others — it  rises  also  on  the  contemplation 
of  virtue  and  vice.  When  the  conscience  declares  an  action 
presented  to  the  mind  to  be  good  or  bad,  certain  emotions 
instantly  present  themselves.  Man  is  so  constituted  that  the 
contemplation  of  virtuous  and  vicious  action — declared  so  to  be 
by  the  conscience — like  the  contemplation  of  pleasure  and  pain, 
awakens  the  sensibility. 

While  thus  the  conception  determines  the  emotions — does  not 
constitute  them,  however — it  is  not  to  be  forgotten  that  emotions 
have  a  most  powerful  influence  upon  the  current  of  the  thoughts 
and  ideas.  The  emotions  may  be  compared  to  fluids  which  press 
equally  in  all  directions,  and  need,  therefore,  a  vessel  to  contain 
them,  or  a  channel  in  which  to  flow  ;  but,  like  these  fluids,  they 
yield  the  strongest  of  all  pressure,  and  serve  most  important 
purposes  in  the  economy  of  life. 

Upon  these  general  grounds,  then,  we  would  be  inclined  to 
assert,  that  there  must  be  the  decision  of  a  faculty  before  there 
can  be  a  feeling  in  regard  to  moral  actions.  "  At  the  same  time," 
says  Cousin,  "  that  we  do  such  and  such  an  act,  it  raises  in  our 
mind  a  judgment  which  declares  its  character,  and  it  is  on  the 
back  of  this  judgment  that  our  sensibility  is  moved.  The  senti- 
ment is  not  this  primitive  and  immediate  judgment,  but  is  its 
powerful  echo.  So  far  from  being  the  foundation  of  the  idea  of 
the  good,  it  supposes  it."*  On  the  other  hand,  we  acknowledge 
that  the  existence  of  the  feeling  has  a  most  powerful  reflex  influ- 
ence in  quickening  the  faculty.  It  breathes  life  into,  and  lends 
wings  to  what  would  otherwise  be  inert  and  inanimate.  But 
we  must  quit  these  general  grounds.  The  connexion  between 
the  emotions  and  their  relative  conceptions  has  not  received  that 
attention  which  it  deserves  from  mental  analysts.  It  is  a  topic 
lying  open  to  the  first  voyager  who  may  have  sufficient  courage 
*  Du  Bien.  ffiuvres,  vol.  ii.  p.  267. 


304  INQUIRY  INTO  THE  NATURE  OF  CONSCIENCE. 

and  skill  to  explore,  without  making  shipwreck  of  himself,  the 
capes  and  bays  by  which  this  land  and  water  indent  into  each 
other. 

The  moral  faculty,  then,  can  never  be  employed  without  emo- 
tion. It  is  the  master  power  of  the  human  soul,  and  it  is  be- 
fitting that  it  should  never  move  without  a  retinue  of  attendants. 
These  feelings,  which  are  its  necessary  train  or  accompaniment 
in  all  its  exercises,  impart  to  it  all  their  liveliness  and  fervour. 
They  communicate  to  the  soul  that  noble  elevation  which  it  feels 
on  the  contemplation  of  benevolence,  of  devotedness  in  a  good 
cause,  and  patriotism  and  piety  under  all  their  forms.  These 
attendants  of  this  monarch  faculty,  while  they  gladden  and 
manifest  its  presence  when  the  will  is  obedient  to  its  master,  are 
at  the  same  time  ready  to  become  the  avenging  spirits  which 
follow  up  the  commission  of  crime  with  more  fearful  lashings 
than  the  serpent-covered  furies  were  ever  supposed  to  have 
inflicted.  The  conscience  travels  like  a  court  of  justice,  with  a 
certain  air  of  dignity,  and  with  its  attendant  ministers  to  execute 
its  decisions.  All  this  is  as  it  should  be.  If  it  is  desirable,  as 
we  have  seen,  that  morality  should  be  presented  under  the  cha- 
racter of  a  law,  and  that  it  should  have  its  appropriate  faculty, 
it  is  equally  needful  that  it  should  have  its  train  of  feelings,  to 
give  a  practical  interest  and  impetus  to  all  the  authoritative 
decisions  which  this  judge  pronounces.  tl  The  design  of  the 
sentiment,"  it  is  finely  remarked  by  Cousin,  "  is  to  render  sen- 
sible to  the  soul  the  connexion  of  virtue  and  happiness."* 

It  is  always  to  be  borne  in  mind,  however,  that  the  simple 
possession  of  conscience,  with  its  accompanying  emotions,  does 
not  render  any  individual  virtuous.  We  are  made  virtuous,  not 
by  the  possession  of  the  faculty  which  judges  of  virtuous  action, 
or  of  the  emotions  which  echo  its  decisions,  but  by  the  possession 
of  the  virtuous  actions  themselves.  This  may  seem  an  obvious 
truth  when  stated ;  but  it  has  been  strangely  overlooked  by 
many,  who  conclude  that  man  is  virtuous  because  he  is  pos- 
sessed of  such  a  power,  and  of  its  responsive  feelings.  These 
persons  do  not  reflect  that  the  faculty  and  its  accompanying 
sentiment  are  ready  to  condemn  the  possessor  of  them,  when  he 
is  without  the  affections  and  actions  in  which  virtue  truly  con- 
sists. We  believe  that  there  is  no  responsible  agent  so  fallen 
*  Du  Bien.  ffiuvres,  vol.  ii.  p.  314. 


INQUIRY  INTO  THE  NATURE  OF  CONSCIENCE.  SO  J 

and  corrupted,  that  he  does  not  possess  this  conscience  and  these 
feelings  :  both,  it  may  be,  are  sadly  perverted  in  their  exercise — 
yet  still  he  possesses  them  in  their  essential  form,  and  that  by 
the  appointment  of  God,  in  order  that  they  may  so  far  punish 
him,  and  enable  him  to  measure  the  depth  of  his  degradation. 

The  poet,  the  tragedian,  and  the  novelist,  address  themselves 
to  these  moral  emotions,  and  seek  to  call  them  forth  by  the 
description  or  exhibition  of  scenes  in  which  tempted  chastity 
stands,  suffering  virtue  is  triumphant,  and  patriotism  burns  with 
a  flame  all  the  brighter,  because  of  the  surrounding  darkness 
and  apostasy ;  or,  changing  the  scene,  they  would  rouse  indig- 
nation, terror,  and  pity,  by  the  pictures  of  powerful  villany  and 
deceit  spreading  misery  among  the  innocent  and  the  helpless. 
It  is  not  to  our  present  purpose  to  inquire  whether  such  repre- 
sentations do  really  strengthen  the  moral  faculty,  and  refine  its 
sensibility  ;  or  whether  they  do  not  rather,  by  their  vain  shows, 
carry  us  into  an  imaginary  world,  from  which  we  return  with 
less  ability  and  inclination  faithfully  to  perform  our  part  in  the 
actual  world.  We  call  attention  to  these  phenomena  for  two 
purposes  ;  one  is  to  show  that  there  are  such  feelings,  which  can 
be  operated  on ;  and  the  other,  to  guard  against  the  idea,  that 
the  possession  of  them  constitutes  any  individual  a  virtuous 
agent.  Thousands  have  wept  in  the  theatre  over  the  trials  of 
suffering  chastity,  and  have  gone  out  to  commit  deeds  of  im- 
purity, and  thereby  to  increase  the  temptations  to  licentiousness, 
and  multiply  the  sufferings  of  those  outcasts  who  yield  to  them. 
The  novel  has  been  stained  by  many  a  tear,  flowing  from  eyes 
which  never  wept  over  the  real  miseries  of  the  poor.  Sterne 
causing  us  to  weep  over  the  dead  ass,  and  meanwhile  treating 
his  own  mother  with  unkindness,  is  only  one  of  a  thousand 
instances  recorded  in  the  history  of  man  to  demonstrate  that 
the  feelings  which  arise  on  the  presentation  of  good  or  evil 
actions  all  belong  to  a  different  department  of  the  human  mind 
from  the  virtuous  affections  themselves.  On  account  of  not 
observing  this  distinction,  multitudes  have  thought  themselves 
good  because  they  have  a  capacity  of  admiring  the  good.  It  is 
the  grand  error  of  not  a  few  of  the  most  powerful  writers  in 
the  present  day  to  suppose  that  hero-worship  and  heroism  are 
allied  to  each  other  ;  that  he  who  admires  the  hero  has  himself 
a  kindred  spirit.    From  the  same  cause,  philosophers  and  ethical 

u 


306  INQUIRY  INTO  THE  NATURE  OF  CONSCIENCE. 

writers  have  drawn  far  too  flattering  a  picture  of  human  charac- 
ter, and  leave  upon  us  the  impression,  that,  because  mankind 
possess  feelings  of  complacency  on  the  contemplation  of  virtue, 
they  are  therefore  possessed  of  virtue  itself. 

The  view  now  offered  of  conscience,  from  the  way  in  which 
we  have  been  obliged  to  state  it,  may  seem  a  very  complex  one. 
In  reality,  it  is  very  simple.  It  is  to  be  regretted  that,  in  giving 
a  description  of  any  mental  state,  we  are  constrained  to  use 
language  which  sounds  so  abstract  and  metaphysical.  The 
conscience  is  the  mind  looking  to  a  moral  law,  and  pronouncing 
judgments  giving  rise  to  emotions.  We  do  not  see  how  any- 
thing could  be  simpler. 

The  writer  who  is  generally  acknowledged  to  have  written  in 
the  most  masterly  way  on  the  conscience,  seems  to  have  viewed 
it  at  times  at  least,  in  all  the  lights  in  which  we  have  now  pre- 
sented it.  He  calls  it  again  and  again  a  "  principle,"  and  a 
"  law,"  the  "  principle  of  reflection  and  conscience,"  and  the 
"  law  of  his  creation,"  a  "  determinate  rule,"  "  the  guide  of  life, 
and  that  by  which  men  are  a  law  unto  themselves ;"  and  affirms, 
that  "  every  man  may  find  within  himself  the  rule  of  right,  and 
obligations  to  follow  it."  That  he  regarded  the  conscience  as 
partaking  both  of  the  nature  of  a  faculty  and  a  feeling,  is  evi- 
dent from  his  calling  it  a  "  faculty  in  the  heart,"  and  more 
particularly  from  the  following  passage  : — "  It  is  manifest,  that 
great  part  of  common  language,  and  of  common  behaviour  over 
the  world,  is  formed  on  the  supposition  of  such  a  moral  faculty, 
whether  called  conscience,  moral  reason,  moral  sense,  or  Divine 
reason,  whether  considered  as  a  sentiment  of  the  understanding, 
or  a  perception  of  the  heart,  or,  which  seems  the  truth,  as 
including  both" 

We  have  a  complete  view  of  the  conscience  only  when  we 
look  at  it  under  this  threefold  aspect,  in  this  its  triune  nature. 
In  each  of  these  characters  it  serves  a  separate  purpose.  As 
looking  to  law,  it  gives  to  morality  a  clearly  defined,  a  solid 
and  consistent  shape,  and  an  authoritative  power.  When  duty 
is  presented  merely  as  emotion,  we  have  an  impression  that  it 
might  change  with  changing  circumstances  or  with  man's 
changing  feelings,  and  might  be  tempted  with  Kousseau,  to 
recommend  as  right,  whatever  recommended  itself  to  our  senti- 
ments.    But  when  it  knows  that  there  is  a  law,  the  mind  feels 


QUALITIES  WHICH  MUST  MEET  IN  MORALLY  GOOD  ACTION.    307 

that  it  has  to  do  with  strict  precepts  and  solemn  sanctions.  Nor 
is  it  to  be  forgotten,  that  this  law  with  obligations  reveals 
authoritatively  the  will  of  God.  Again,  as  a  faculty,  the  con- 
science is  an  arbiter  ever  ready  to  decide,  a  master  ever  ready  to 
issue  commands.  As  a  sentiment,  it  furnishes  pleasure,  stirs 
up  desire,  and  leads  to  activity.  Nor  is  it  unworthy  of  being 
remarked,  that  it  is  in  its  very  nature  connected  both  with  the 
understanding  and  the  feelings,  partaking  of  the  strength  and 
stability  of  the  one,  and  of  the  life  and  facility  of  the  other.  It 
is  the  "  faculty  of  the  heart,"  and  the  "  sentiment  of  the  under- 
standing." While  thus  linking  itself  with  all  parts  of  our 
nature,  it  speaks  as  one  having  authority  to  every  other  power 
and  principle  of  the  human  mind.  Were  this  "  faculty  of  the 
heart"  allowed  its  proper  power,  it  would,  in  the  name  of  the 
supreme  Governor,  preserve  for  him — that  is,  for  God — the 
place  which  he  ought  to  have  in  every  human  head  and  heart 


SECT.  V. — QUALITIES  WHICH  MUST  MEET  IN  MORALLY  RIGHT 
ACTION  ON  THE  PART  OF  MAN. 

The  inquiry  into  the  nature  of  the  morally  good  is  different 
from  the  inquiry  into  the  nature  of  conscience,  though  the  two 
have  often  been  confounded. 

The  question  here  started  is,  in  what  does  virtue  consist,  what 
is  its  essence  or  the  common  quality  found  in  all  virtuous 
action  ?  We  have  never  fallen  in  with  a  satisfactory  answer 
to  this  question  in  all  its  generality.  We  suspect  that  a  defini- 
tion of  virtue  taken  absolutely  is  beyond  the  faculties  of  man. 
Price  and  Stewart  represent  moral  good  as  an  original  and 
simple  quality  seen  at  once  and  intuitively  by  the  mind,  incapa- 
ble of  being  reduced  into  anything  more  elementary,  and  there- 
fore incapable  of  definition.  We  suspect  that  this  is  the  correct 
representation,  so  far  as  hwmcm  intelligence  is  concerned.  We 
make  this  qualification,  because  we  do  not  mean  to  decide 
whether  higher  intelligences  might  not  be  able  to  fix  on  some 
quality  or  qualities  as  constituting  the  essence  of  the  good. 
But  of  this  we  are  sure,  that  all  attempted  definitions  of  virtue 
on  the  part  of  ethical  writers,  have  either  been  utterly  defective, 
or  have  consisted  simply  in  the  substitution  of  synonymous 


308  QUALITIES  WHICH  MUST  MEET 

phrases.  When  it  is  said  that  virtue  is  agreement  with  the 
eternal  fitness  of  things,  or  that  it  is  benevolence,  or  utility,  or 
beneficial  tendency,  all  such  definitions  are  erroneous.  When 
it  is  said  that  virtue  is  that  which  is  good,  right,  meritorious, 
obligatory,  all  such  explanations  amount  to  this,  that  virtue 
is  virtue. 

Man  must  content  himself,  we  suspect — at  least  we  mean  in 
this  treatise  to  satisfy  ourselves — with  answering  a  much  lower 
question, — lower  in  speculation,  though  vastly  superior  in  prac- 
tical importance.  What  qualities  must  be  found  in  all  truly 
good  actions  on  the  part  of  man  ? 

Whatever  these  qualities  be,  they  must  be  in  the  virtu- 
ous agent.  What  is  a  virtuous  agent,  but  an  agent  acting 
virtuously  ;  it  is  a  virtuous  state  of  the  mind.  This  proposition, 
frequently  overlooked,  needs  only  to  be  announced  to  command 
universal  assent. 

By  keeping  this  principle  steadily  before  us,  we  shall  be 
saved  from  a  number  of  erroneous  theories.  It  will  at  once 
shew  that  it  is  wrong  to  represent  virtue,  with  Hume,  as  con- 
sisting in  the  useful  and  agreeable  ;  or  as  the  advocates  of  this 
theory,  somewhat  modified,  now  place  it,  in  beneficial  tendency, 
or  the  greatest  happiness  principle.  If  the  supporters  of  this 
ethical  system  had  so  stated  it,  as  to  represent  the  intent  to  pro- 
duce utility,  or  the  purpose  to  do  a  beneficial  act,  as  constituting 
virtuous  action,  their  views  would  not  have  been  inconsistent 
with  the  proposition  now  laid  down.  But  they  are  careful  to 
inform  us,  that  the  parties  who  perform  the  virtuous  act  may 
not  be  aware,  or  distinctly  conscious,  of  its  tendency.  Love  to 
God,  they  tell  us,  is  beneficial ;  but  they  acknowledge  that  the 
person  who  loves  God  is  not  led  to  do  so  by  a  perception  of  the 
benefit  to  be  derived.  The  utility  or  beneficial  tendency  of 
actions  may  be  observed,  they  say,  by  careful  reflection,  but  is 
not  necessarily  before  the  mind  of  the  agent.  They  farther 
allow,  in  regard  to  the  great  mass  of  mankind,  that  they  are  not 
in  circumstances  to  determine  the  ultimate  tendency  of  actions  ; 
that  if  they  waited  till  they  knew  precisely  all  the  effects  of 
their  conduct,  they  would  never  act ;  and  that,  if  they  acted  on 
their  own  narrow  short-sighted  views  of  utility,  they  might  per- 
form the  most  atrocious  crimes  in  the  name  of  virtue.  The 
advocates  of  the  theorv  are  constrained,  in  order  to  obviate  these 


IN  MORALLY  GOOD  ACTION.  309 

difficulties,  to  acknowledge,  that  though  utility  or  beneficial 
tendency  may  be  the  proper  effect  of  every  virtuous  action,  yet 
that  it  has  not  necessarily  a  place  in  the  intention  of  the  actor. 
It  cannot,  then,  constitute  the  distinguishing  quality  of  virtue. 
It  is  not  so  much  an  attribute  of  virtue,  as  an  effect  following 
from  it,  through  the  Divine  appointment  and  arrangement ; 
and  an  effect  following,  because  of  the  honour  which  God  would 
put  upon  virtue. 

What  quality,  then,  in  the  mind  of  the  agent  may  be  regarded 
as  constituting  moral  good  ?  Butler  does  not  answer  this  ques- 
tion. There  are  passages  in  his  Treatise  on  the  Nature  of 
Virtue,  which  show  that  the  subject  had  been  before  him  ;  that 
he  knew  the  question  of  the  nature  of  virtue  to  be  different  from 
the  question  of  the  nature  of  conscience ;  but  that  he  did  not 
think  it  necessary  to  prosecute  the  former  inquiry.  He  speaks 
of  himself,  as  not  "  stopping  to  inquire  how  far,  and  in  what 
sense,  virtue  is  resolvable  into  benevolence,  and  vice  into  the 
want  of  it." 

Hutcheson  has  given  a  distinct  answer  to  the  question,  and 
defended  his  theory  with  his  usual  acuteness ;  he  represents  virtue 
as  consisting  in  benevolence.  But  so  far  as  by  benevolence  he 
means  merely  an  instinctive  attachment  springing  up  independ- 
ently of  the  will,  we  maintain  that  his  theory  is  erroneous  ;  for  in 
such  affection  there  cannot  be  anything  either  virtuous  or  vicious. 
Again,  if  fby  benevolence  is  meant  simply  goodwill  to  a  neighbour, 
or  a  desire  to  promote  his  happiness,  the  scheme  is  all  too  narrow ; 
for  it  excludes  the  love  of  God,  and  the  holy  affections  connected 
with  it  and  springing  from  it.  Nor  does  it  seem  possible,  without 
an  unreasonable  straining  and  perversion,  to  include  one  of  the 
most  essential  of  all  the  virtues,  that  of  justice,  under  benevo- 
lence understood  in  any  legitimate  acceptation. 

There  are,  at  least,  two  essential  mental  elements  in  all  morally 
right  action  ;  there  is  the  will,  and  there  is  righteousness  ;  there 
is  the  will  obeying  the  law  addressed  to  the  moral  faculty.  It 
is  voluntary  action,  done  because  it  is  right.  Not  only  so,  there 
is  a  third  element,  arising  from  the  relation  in  which  the  law 
and  man  stand  to  God. 

First  element. — We  regard  the  will  as  the  seat  of  all  virtue 
and  vice.  There  is  an  act  of  the  will  wherever  there  is  choice, 
preference,  or   resolution — wherever  the  will   has  adopted  or 


310  QUALITIES  WHICH  MUST  MEET 

sanctioned  any  particular  mental  state — wherever  there  is  wish 
desire,  or  volition  ;  and  wherever  there  is  none  of  these,  there  we 
hold  there  can  be  no  moral  action.  There  is  nothing  either 
moral  or  immoral  in  a  mere  intellectual  act,  or  in  a  mere  sensa- 
tion, or  a  mere  emotion,  considered  in  themselves,  but  whenever 
the  will  chooses  these,  gives  its  consent  to  them — there  virtue  or 
vice  may  exist. 

Certain  acts  of  the  will,  we  are  aware,. are  neither  virtuous  nor 
vicious.  To  prefer  pleasure  to  pain,  honour  to  disgrace,  society 
to  solitude;  in  such  acts  as  these,  whether  they  exist  in  the  shape 
of  wish,  desire,  or  volition,  there  is  nothing  morally  approvable, 
or  the  opposite.  The  morality  in  the  will  begins  at  the  place  at 
which  conscience  interposes.  If  it  says,  this  pleasure  is  sinful — 
this  honour  can  be  attained  only  by  unlawful  means — this 
society  is  full  of  peril  to  the  best  interests  of  the  soul ;  and  if  the 
pleasure,  honour,  and  society  are  still  preferred,  the  party  is 
guilty  of  sin. 

We  are  happy  to  find  our  views  on  this  subject  coinciding  in 
the  main  with  those  of  Dr.  Chalmers.  "  We  would  now  affirm," 
says  he,  "  the  all-important  principle,  that  nothing  is  moral  or 
immoral  which  is  not  voluntary.  We  have  often  been  struck  with 
writers  upon  moral  science,  in  that,  even  though  professing  a  view 
or  an  argument  altogether  elementary,  they  seldom  come  formally 
or  ostensibly  forth  with  this  principle."  "We  think  it  for  the 
advantage  of  our  own  subject  that  it  should  receive  a  different 
treatment;  that  it  should  be  announced,  and  with  somewhat  of 
the  pomp  and  circumstances,  too,  of  a  first  principle,  and  have 
the  distinction  given  to  it,  not  of  a  tacit,  but  of  a  proclaimed 
axiom  in  moral  scienee."  He  speaks  of  this  principle  as  that 
"  which  binds  together,  as  it  were,  the  moral  and  the  voluntary."* 
It  is  an  old  theological  maxim,  omne  pcccatum  est  voluntarium. 
Doubtless  some  eminent  divines  denied  it,  but  they  did  so,  by 
narrowing  the  meaning  of  voluntary,  and  confining  it  to  acts 
done  deliberately  or  with  premeditation. 

We  maintain,  then,  that  there  can  be  neither  virtue  nor  vice 
where  there  is  no  exercise  of  the  will.  There  is  nothing,  for 
example,  meritorious  in  the  mere  exercise  of  the  intellectual 
faculties.  Except  in  the  motives  by  which  he  was  swayed, 
Newton  had  no  more  merit  in  discovering  the  law  of  gravitation,, 
*  Chalmers's  Mor.  Phil.,  chap,  v 


IN  MORALLY  GOOD  ACTION.  311 

or  inventing  the  fluxionary  calculus,  than  the  machine  has  in 
following  the  impulse  given  it ;  nor  is  there  anything  morally 
approvahle  in  the  mere  operation  of  the  instinctive  feelings  and 
affections,  such  as  the  love  of  pleasure,  the  love  of  offspring,  and 
the  common  likings  and  attachments  which  exist  in  the  world. 
These  may  be  in  the  highest  degree  becoming,  just  as  proportion, 
as  order,  and  beauty  are  becoming  ;  but  in  themselves  they  are 
neither  virtuous  nor  vicious.  In  order  that  they  may  become 
virtuous,  they  must,  somehow  or  other,  be  placed  under  the 
dominion  of  the  will.  They  are  vicious  only  so  far  as  they  are 
allowed  by  the  will  to  flow  out  contrary  to  the  dictates  of  that 
law  which  God  hath  prescribed  for  the  regulation  of  the  conduct. 
On  the  other  hand,  there  may  be  virtue  or  vice  wherever  there 
is  the  consent  of  the  will.  But  while  we  are  inclined  so  to  limit 
the  seat  of  responsibility  as  to  bring  it  within  the  will,  yet  we 
would  so  extend  it,  as  to  make  it  wide  as  the  will,  in  all  its  ex- 
ercises. Accordingly,  we  cannot  agree  with  those  who,  as  Cousin 
and  Jouffroy,  think  that  no  state  of  the  mind  is  sinful  but  a 
positive  volition.  If  we  know  that  the  object  is  forbidden,  and 
still  wish  it,  desire  it,  and  are  prevented  only  by  certain 
prudential  considerations  from  determining  upon  the  acquisition 
of  it,  the  act  is  undoubtedly  sinful.  No  doubt,  if  we  are  re- 
strained, not  by  mere  prudence,  but  by  a  hatred  of  sin,  from 
seeking  the  attainment  of  the  object,  in  this  case  the  wish,  the 
desire,  is  not  sinful ;  but  then,  observe  what  is  the  precise  nature 
of  the  wrish :  it  is  a  wish  to  obtain,  not  the  object  with  all  its 
sinful  concomitants,  but  the  pleasure,  honour,  or  society,  as  sepa- 
rated from  the  object.  Now,  in  such  a  wish  or  desire  there  is 
nothing  improper ;  nay,  there  would  be  nothing  sinful  in  a 
positive  volition  which  embraced  no  more.  But  if,  after  knowing 
the  object  to  be  forbidden,  or  that  we  cannot  obtain  it  without 
its  necessarily  attendant  sin,  we  still  continue  to  long  for  it,  then 
the  very  concupiscence  is  criminal,  as  the  will  is  giving  its  con- 
sent to  its  continuance.  "  Whosoever  looketh  on  a  woman  to 
lust  after  her,  hath  committed  adultery  with  her  already  in  his 
heart."* 

*  It  is  at  this  point  that  we  differ  from  Dr.  Chalmers.  Following  too  implicitly 
Dr.  Brown,  whose  lectures  had  just  been  published  at  the  time  when  the  former  was 
called  on  to  write  his  Course  of  Moral  Philosophy,  he  has  confounded  the  will  in 
some  of  its  exercises  with  mere  sensibility.     Not  that  he  has  allowed  his  penetrat- 


312  QUALITIES  WHICH  MUST  MEET 

Kegarding  all  virtue  and  vice  as  lying  within  the  territory  of 
the  will,  that  is,  of  the  mind  exercised  voluntarily  or  optatively, 
we  maintain,  at  the  same  time,  that  their  territory  is  wide  as 
that  of  the  will,  and  that  all  states  into  which  will  enters,  or  to 
which  it  has  given  consent,  are  capable  of  being  morally  praise- 
worthy or  blameworthy.  Not  that  the  will  in  every  possible  state 
is  necessarily  either  virtuous  or  vicious ;  for  it  may  be  set  on  an 
indifferent  object,  and  neither  be  the  one  nor  the  other  in  some 
of  its  exercises.  What  we  mean  is,  that  under  all  its  modifica- 
tions, and  in  particular  wherever  it  exists  as  wish,  desire,  or 
volition,  it  may  be  virtuous  if  properly  directed,  and  sinful  if 
improperly  exercised.     Let  us  now  look  at  some  of  the  ac- 

ing  eye  to  be  completely  dazzled  by  the  brilliant  coruscations  of  the  ingenious 
speculator  referred  to.  A  lingering  attachment  to  Dr.  Thomas  Reid,  at  a  time 
when  he  was  decried  in  Scotland,  and  a  high  sense  of  moral  principle,  as  distin- 
guished from  mere  emotion,  have  saved  him  from  adopting  all  the  views  of  the 
singularly  subtle  analyst  whom  he  so  much  admired.  In  particular,  we  find  him 
distinguishing  volition  from  mere  desire,  which  latter  he  represents  as  emotion,  with 
nothing  in  it  either  virtuous  or  the  opposite.  Dr.  Brown  has  altogether  confounded 
the  will  and  the  emotions,  and,  so  far  as  we  can  see,  has  virtually  blotted  the 
former  out  of  his  map  of  the  mind  altogether,  at  least  as  a  separate  territory. 
Chalmers  has  hurried  in  to  snatch  volition,  or  the  final  resolution  to  act,  from  the 
list  of  mere  emotions,  and  to  place  it  by  itself  as  a  separate  mental  operation. 
We  are  inclined  to  think  that  he  should  have  gone  further,  and  taken  from  the 
mere  emotions,  not  only  positive  volition,  but  wish  and  desire,  and  placed  the 
whole  in  a  separate  department  of  the  human  mind,  the  region  of  the  will,  which 
is  the  seat  of  responsibility.  We  were  long  sadly  puzzled  with  this  whole  subject, 
especially  in  its  bearings  upon  ethics.  We  put  the  question,  are  mere  emotions 
morally  approvable  or  the  opposite,  and  we  had  to  answer  that  they  are  not. 
What  actions  then,  we  asked,  are  moral  or  immoral  in  their  nature,  and  we  were 
taught  to  reply,  acts  of  the  will.  But  may  not  wishes,  desires,  and  affections  be 
holy  or  unholy?  Here  we  paused  for  a  time.  On  the  one  hand, we  were  inclined 
to  think  that  affections  and  desires  might  be  virtuous  or  vicious.  Were  not  the 
desires  of  the  Psalmist  holy,  when  he  said,  My  soul  thirsteth  for  God  ?  Then  our 
Saviour  has  said,  "  Whosoever  looketh  on  a  woman,"  &c.  But  on  the  other  hand, 
wishes  and  desires  according  to  the  received  doctrine  are  mere  emotions,  and  can 
in  themselves  possess  no  moral  quality.  AVe  continued  for  a  time  in  this  painful 
state  of  perplexity.  We  felt  relieved  beyond  measure  when  the  thought  occurred, 
that  wishes  and  desires,  and  affections  into  which  wish  and  desire  enter,  are  not 
emotions,  but  exercises  of  a  higher  power.  Following  out  this  view  we  were  con- 
strained to  shift  the  boundary  line  between  feeling  and  will,  from  the  place  at  which 
it  has  been  commonly  laid  down,  but  we  found  that  in  doing  so  we  were  drawing 
the  essential  distinction  both  in  a  psychological  and  ethical  point  of  view.  It  seems 
to  us  to  settle  the  old  theological  controversy  about  the  sinfulness  of  concupiscence, 
— tne  concupiscence  of  evil  is  sinful  whenever  the  will  has  given  its  consent  to  its 
rise  or  continuance. 


IN  MORALLY  GOOD  ACTION.  313 

knowledged  virtues,  and  inquire  if  they  do  not  lie  in  this  region 
of  the  soul. 

It  is  universally  admitted  that  love  or  benevolence  must  ever 
be  placed  among  the  highest  of  the  virtues ;  nay,  some  have 
maintained  that  it  constitutes  virtue.  But  in  ranking  it  among 
the  virtues,  it  is  necessary  to  draw  a  distinction.  Dr.  Brown 
says,  very  properly,  that  "  the  analysis  of  love  presents  us  with 
two  elements — a  vivid  delight  in  the  contemplation  of  the  object 
of  affection,  and  a  desire  of  good  to  that  object."*  Now,  we  do 
regard  it  as  of  great  importance  to  distinguish  these  two 
elements.  The  one  may  exist,  and  often  does  exist,  without  the 
other.  There  is  often,  on  the  one  hand,  the  delight  in  the  object, 
the  selfish  delight,  without  the  desire  of  good ;  and  there  may, 
in  virtuous  minds,  be  the  desire  of  good  to  persons  in  whom  no 
special  delight  is  felt.  The  two,  though  often  associated,  proceed 
from  essentially  different  departments  of  the  human  mind.  The 
first  is  merely  emotional,  and,  except  in  so  far  as  it  is  used  or 
abused  by  the  voluntary  powers,  there  is  nothing  in  it  virtuous 
or  the  reverse.  But  when  there  is  a  desire  of  good,  a  simple, 
disinterested  desire  of  good,  there  is  a  more  active  and  positive 
state  of  mind ;  we  have  mounted  to  the  region  of  a  higher  faculty, 
and  may  find  virtue,  and  virtue  of  the  highest  order.  But  there 
can,  we  maintain,  be  virtue  in  love  or  benevolence,  only  so  far  as 
it  rises  above  mere  instinctive  attachment  and  emotional  delight, 
and  contains  a  positive  energy  of  the  will. 

But  the  field  of  possible  virtue  and  vice  is  wide  as  the  domain 
of  the  will.  Virtue  may  consist  of  other  mental  affections  besides 
mere  benevolence. 

One  of  its  most  essential  forms  is  justice,  or  a  wish,  a  deter- 
mination to  do  what  is  right,  and  give  to  all  their  clue.  Justitia 
est  constans  et  perpetua  voluntas  jus  suum  cuique  tribuencli,  is 
the  definition  adopted  by  Justinian  in  the  opening  sentence  of 
his  Institutes.  This  virtue  certainly  comes  within  the  depart- 
ment of  the  will,  but  cannot,  with  any  propriety,  be  classed 
under  benevolence. 

Virtue  is  in  one  of  its  highest  forms,  or  rather  in  its  highest 
form,  when  the  will  is  properly  exercised  in  reference  to  the 
Divine  Being.  It  is  something  higher  than  mere  benevolence, 
when  thus  directed  towards  so  elevated  an  object.    We  feel  that 

*  Lect.  59. 


314  QUALITIES  WHICH  MUST  MEET 

God  does  not  need  our  good  wishes,  as  he  does  not  need  our 
help  ;  and  yet  we  feel  that  there  is  a  holy  exercise  of  the  will 
due  on  our  part  to  him.  Hence  arises  the  desire  to  glorify  God, 
being  the  highest  desire  which  the  creature  can  cherish,  and  the 
noblest  motive  by  which  he  can  be  actuated.  This  internal 
exercise  of  the  will  finds  its  fullest  and  most  appropriate  embodi- 
ment and  expression  in  praise  and  prayer.  Under  this  feeling 
we  say,  "  Hallowed  be  thy  name,"  and  earnestly  long  that  God, 
as  he  is  all-glorious,  may  be  glorified  as  he  ought.  We  say, 
"  Thy  will  be  done,"  and  feel  it  to  be  the  highest  work  in  which 
we  can  engage  to  do  his  will,  and  labour  that  others  also  may 
know  it,  and  do  it. 

Taking  this  theory  with  us,  we  see  how  there  may  be  virtue, 
not  only  in  luell-ivishing,  but  in  the  opposite  of  well-wishing ; 
how  there  may  be  virtuousness  in  the  voluntary  aversion  to  sin, 
being  the  converse  of  the  voluntary  love  to  what  is  good.  There 
may  be  high  moral  excellence  implied  in  resisting  vain  thoughts 
rising  spontaneously,  and  sense  presenting  temptations.  In  all 
holy  minds,  as  an  essential  part  of  holiness,  there  is  an  intense 
desire  that  sin  may  not  exist,  and  that,  when  it  exists,  it  may 
not  prosper,  but  be  driven  into  perpetual  darkness  * 
But  the  will  is  not  the  only  element.  There  is  a 
Second  element. — Analyze  and  simplify  as  we  may,  we  can- 
not do  away  with  the  element  of  a  moral  faculty  with  a  rule  of 
action,  that  is,  a  moral  law.  In  all  our  decompositions  we  come 
back  to  this  great  ultimate  fact,  and  cannot  go  beyond  it.  But 
let  us  see  that  we  fully  and  fairly  unfold  the  contents  of  this 
fact.  Our  moral  nature  reveals  a  law  which  is — first,  inde- 
pendent of  it ;  secondly,  binding  upon  it ;  and,  thirdly,  binding 
on  all  intelligent  beings.f     The  conscience  declares  that  it  has 

*  Chalmers  says,  (Mor.  Phil.,  v.  6,  note,)  that  desire  respects  the  objects  wished, 
and  volition  the  action  by  which  the  object  is  attained  ;  and  (v.  16)  that  volition 
alone  is  the  proper  object  of  moral  censure  or  approbation.  We  regard  desire  in 
actively  longing  for  the  object  wished,  (as  benevolence,  for  instance,)  and  also  the 
voluntary  hatreds,  (as  the  hatred  of  sin,)  as  all  capable  of  being  moral  or  immoral, 
as  well  as  the  volition. 

f  Certain  metaphysicians  aim  at  saying  something  like  this,  by  telling  us  that  the 
law  has  an  objective  existence.  But  what  is  meant  by  objective  in  such  an  appli- 
cation ?  Does  it  signify  an  object  of  thought  ?  In  this  sense  a  griffin,  when  we 
think  of  it,  is  objective.  Or  is  it  employed  to  signify  a  really  existing  thing,  like 
Cod  and  angels?  Then  the  doctrine  lands  us  in  all  the  absurdities  of  extreme 
realism.     The  j  hrases  subjective  and  objective  are  used  in  so  many  senses,  and 


IN  MORALLY  GOOD  ACTION.  315 

not  created  that  law,  it  feels  that  the  law  has  been  imposed  on 
it.  It  feels  that  it  is  merely  the  interpreter  of  a  law  binding, 
independently  of  the  recognition  or  non-recognition  of  it  by  any 
individual.  It  declares  regarding  itself  that  its  function  is  not 
to  assume  authority  over  the  law :  but  to  bow  to  the  law  as 
having  authority  over  it.  Tracing  up  this  law,  the  mind  is  led 
to  connect  it  with  the  Divine  nature  and  character.  We  thus 
find  the  moral  law  revealed  as  an  ultimate  fact  in  the  human 
mind,  and  we  believe  it  to  represent  an  ultimate  fact  in  the 
Divine  mind.  We  can  follow  it  to  its  ultimate  seat  on  the  earth 
in  the  constitution  of  the  human  soul,  and  thence  trace  it  up 
to  its  last  seat  in  heaven  in  the  very  nature  of  Grod.  We  can 
follow  it  thus  far,  and  it  can  be  traced  no  farther. 

"  For  a  thing  to  be  done  virtuously,"  says  Chalmers,  "  it 
must  be  done  voluntarily ;  but  this  is  not  enough,  it  is  not  all. 
It  is  an  indispensable  condition,  but  not  the  only  condition. 
The  other  condition — that  to  be  done  virtuously,  it  must  be 
done  because  of  its  virtuousness ;  or  its  virtuousness  must  be 
the  prompting  consideration,  which  led  to  the  doing  of  it.  It  is 
not  volition  alone  which  makes  a  thing  virtuous,  but  a  volition 
under  a  sense  of  duty ;  and  that  only  is  a  moral  performance  to 
which  a  man  is  urged  by  the  sense  or  feeling  of  moral  obliga- 
tion. It  may  be  done  at  the  bidding  of  inclination,  but  without 
this  it  is  not  done  at  the  bidding  of  principle.  Without  this  it 
is  not  virtuous."* 

It  is  not,  then,  mere  well-wishing,  mere  benevolence,  or  affec- 
tion, considered  even  as  an  act  of  the  will,  which  constitutes 
virtue.  The  affection  shown  by  the  ancient  Egyptians  and 
modern  Indians  towards  cats  and  other  species  of  the  lower 
animals,  cannot  be  regarded  as  meritorious ;  nor  could  an}r 
extent  of  that  affection,  though  it  should  lead  to  the  founding 
of  an  hospital  for  their  behoof,  come  up  to  the  morally  com- 
mendable. Yet  we  suspect  that  much  of  the  benevolence  that 
exists  in  the  world,  and  which  is  so  applauded  by  it,  is  of  no 

have  had  such  a  misleading  influence  in  modern  German  speculation,  that  they 
might,  like  the  word  idea,  be  profitably  banished  from  philosophy,  or  employed 
only  as  correlative  phrases,  the  one  signifying  the  mind  as  contemplating  a  thing, 
the  other  the  thing,  real  or  imaginary,  as  contemplated.  The  word  objective  is 
certainly  not  fitted  fully  to  develop  what  we  mean,  when  we  say  that  the  law  is 
independent  of  the  individual  mind,  having  authority  over  it,  and  over  all  minds. 
*  Chalmers's  Mor.  Phil.,  c.  5. 


316  QUALITIES  WHICH  MUST  MEET 

higher  nature  ;  it  cannot  be  regarded  as  virtuous,  because  it  is 
destitute  of  one  essential  moral  quality.  It  is  only  when  we 
are  kind  to  the  lower  animals  from  a  higher  principle,  and 
exercise  benevolence  towards  mankind,  because  this  is  right, 
that  our  love  becomes  morally  commendable. 

Taking  this  principle  along  with  us,  we  see  how  it  is  perfectly 
possible  that  there  may  be  numerous  good  wishes,  and  fervent 
benevolent  desires,  in  which  there  is  no  virtue,  but  rather  much 
sin.  There  may  be  much  evil  in  ill-regulated  benevolent  desires 
and  volitions.  Neither  the  existence  nor  the  fervour  of  such 
desires  can  prove  the  mind  in  which  they  exist  to  be  in  a 
morally  right  condition.  The  most  wicked  of  men  have  not 
been  without  their  feelings  of  kindness ;  some  of  them  have 
shown  their  wickedness  in  the  nature  and  character  of  their 
generosity.  These  feelings,  and  the  corresponding  actions,  can 
become  morally  commendable  only  when  cherished  or  done  be- 
cause they  are  right. 

In  summing  up  the  truth  which  we  have  gained,  it  appears 
that  God,  the  Governor,  has  given  to  every  responsible  agent  a 
transcript  of  his  own  nature,  first,  in  a  power  of  will,  which  we 
hold  to  be  as  free  as  it  is  possible  for  it  to  be  in  any  intelligible 
sense  of  the  term  ;  and,  secondly,  and  alongside  of  this  free  will, 
a  fixed  law  for  the  guidance  of  the  will.  Freedom  and  law  are 
thus  the  fundamental  charters  of  this  kingdom  of  mind.  The 
mind  is  virtuous  when  the  two  are  in  union,  when  the  free  will 
is  moving  in  accordance  with  the  fixed  law.  The  mind  is 
criminal  when  the  free  will  is  unfaithful  to  her  partner  and  hus- 
band, the  law.  There  begin  from  that  instant  that  schism,  those 
family  dissensions,  if  we  may  so  speak,  which  do  so  distract  the 
soul.  And  from  these  inward  contests  there  can  be  no  escape  by 
means  of  a  lawful  divorce.  That  fixed  law  still  holds  forth  its 
claims,  and  stands  by  its  rights,  which  it  will  not,  and  cannot 
forego,  nor  even  lower  by  a  single  iota.  Hence  that  internal 
dissension  which  rages  in  the  breasts  of  all  whose  will  has 
rebelled  against  the  law  of  their  nature,  that  is,  the  law  of  God 
— a  schism  which,  but  for  Divine  interposition,  must  exist  for 
ever,  it  being  impossible  for  the  distracted  parties  either  to 
separate  on  the  one  hand,  or 'cordially  to  unite  on  the  other. 

The  morally  good,  then,  cannot  exist  without  the  presence  both 
of  righteousness  and  benevolence  or  love.    There  is  benevolence 


EST  MORALLY  GOOD  ACTION.  317 

in  every  right  exercise  of  justice.  Justice  is  love  leading  us  to 
give  every  one  his  due.  There  is  righteousness,  too,  in  every 
right  exercise  of  love.  A  holy  love  is  cherished  toward  a  being, 
according  as  that  being  has  claim  upon  it.  No  analysis  can  free 
us  from  the  one  or  other  of  these  essential  elements.  Justice 
without  love  would  be  a  mere  rule,  with  nothing  to  impel  the 
agent  to  perform  it.  Love  without  justice  is  the  mere  lavishing 
of  a  weak  affection.  The  two  meet  and  blend  in  every  act  that 
is  morally  right,  as  they  meet  in  the  character  of  every  holy 
creature,  and  in  the  character  of  the  holy  Creator. 

All  deep  and  earnest  inquirers  into  the  nature  of  virtue  have 
got  at  least  a  partial  view  of  the  concrete  truth.  Each  has  seen 
it  under  one  aspect,  and  has  gone  away  so  ravished  with  the 
sight,  that  he  never  thought  of  going  round  the  object  and 
inquiring  if  it  had  not  another  aspect  equally  lovely.  Clarke 
enunciates  a  profound  truth  when  he  says,  that  there  is  an 
eternal  fitness  in  virtue,  for  there  is  such  a  fitness  in  that  right- 
eousness which  regulates  benevolence.  Hutcheson  is  right  in 
saying,  that  in  all  virtue  there  is  benevolence ;  and  Edwards 
has  given  his  theory  a  wider  expansion  in  affirming  that  love 
to  being  is  of  the  very  essence  of  virtuous  action.  Kant  seized 
on  a  fundamental  principle,  when  he  represented  the  practical 
reason  as  announcing  a  law  imperative  and  universal.  Reid, 
Stewart,  and  Cousin,  have  developed  the  mental  process  by 
which  this  eternal  fitness  is  discovered,  and  they  have  shown, 
too,  that  virtue  must  reside  in  the  will.  Each  has  seen  so  much 
of  the  truth.  To  use  an  image  of  Jouffroy,  each  has  seen  one 
side  of  the  pyramid,  and  has  written  beneath  it — not,  as  he 
ought,  This  is  one  side  of  the  pyramid,  but,  This  is  the  pyramid. 
One  party  has  seen  the  love,  and  another  has  seen  the  right- 
eousness. Hutcheson  observed  that  affection  and  feeling  were 
essential  parts  of  all  virtue,  but  took  no  cognizance  of  the  fixed 
principles  by  which  they  must  be  regulated.  Edwards,  in  a 
profounder  investigation,  discovered  that  love  must  be  according 
to  a  rule  ;  but  failed  in  explaining  the  relation  of  love  to  law.* 

*  It  is  not  to  the  credit  of  the  catholicity  of  the  German  philosophers,  that  they 
seem  to  be  utterly  ignorant  of  Edwards,  who,  in  point  of  depth  of  intellect,  is  equal 
to  any  of  themselves,  and  in  holy  purity  and  humility  far  their  superior.  We 
have  at  times  thought  that  his  theory  of  virtue,  considered  as  an  ultimate  resolu- 
tion of  it,  may  be  nearer  the  truth  than  any  other.  But  he  has  failed,  because  no 
mortal  man  might  succeed.     Man  has  not  data  to  solve  the  problem.     He  cannct 


318  QUALITIES  WHICH  MUST  MEET 

Clarke  and  Cudworth,  with  clear  intellectual  intuition,  saw  the 
presence  of  eternal  and  unresolvable  principles.  Kant  exhibits 
the  imperative  in  all  its  rigour,  but  fails  to  soften  its  stern 
aspect  by  the  smiles  of  benevolence.  Keid  and  his  followers 
have  patiently  investigated  the  powers  of  the  human  mind  by 
which  these  principles  are  discovered  ;  but  none  of  these  latter 
philosophers  seem  to  give  its  proper  place  to  the  no  less  impor- 
tant element  of  benevolence.  The  true  theory  is  to  be  found, 
not  in  the  indiscriminate,  not  in  the  mere  mechanical  combina- 
tion of  the  two,  but  in  their  chemical  combination,  in  the  melt- 
ing  and  fusing  of  them  into  one. 

Justice  and  Love  are  each  the  complement  of  the  other.  Let 
us  not  separate  the  things  that  are  indissolubly  joined  together 
in  this  holy  marriage-covenant.  Let  Righteousness  stand  for 
ever  on  the  pedestal  on  which  he  has  been  set  up,  with  his  high 
look  and  unbending  mien,  the  master  and  the  guardian  ;  and 
ever  beside  him,  beneath  him,  and  leaning  upon  him,  yet  beau- 
tiful and  graceful  as  he,  let  there  be  seen  Love,  with  smiles 
upon  her  face  and  gifts  in  her  hands.  Our  eye  would  at  times 
rest  most  fondly  on  the  latter ;  but  then  we  are  constrained  to 
acknowledge,  that  were  she  left  alone  there  would  be  no  prin- 
ciple of  discernment  for  her  guidance,  and  so  we  look  eagerly  to 
justice  as  the  ground  of  our  lasting  confidence  and  securitjr. 

These  considerations  may  help  us  to  understand  the  relation 
between  love  on  the  one  hand,  and  righteousness  on  the  other, 
the  former  being  the  impellent  of  virtue,  and  the  latter  the  rule. 
The  two  are  not  antagonist,  but  conspiring.  In  the  Divine 
character,  and  in  all  holy  character,  the  two  are  in  closest  and 
loveliest  union.  Love,  ever  ready  to  flow  out  like  the  waters 
from  a  fountain,  has  unchanging  justice  determining  its  measure 
and  direction,  and  furnishing  it  with  a  channel  in  which  to  flow. 

measure  the  claims  of  being  as  being,  the  rule  to  him  must  be  a  plainer  and  more 
practical  one.  Edwards'  theory  fails  in  giving  a  proper  foundation  to  justice, 
and  in  unloosing  the  knot  produced  by  the  existence  of  sinful  beings.  We  may 
here  be  allowed  to  add,  that  the  United  States  of  America  have  of  late  years  fur- 
nished very  important  contributions  to  ethical  science.  Waylands'  work  will 
continue  to  be  reckoned  a  standard  one  even  by  those  who  do  not  altogether 
accord  with  his  theory  of  virtue.  Alexander  on  Moral  Science,  is  one  of  the  most 
satisfactory  treatises  which  we  have  on  man's  moral  agency.  Hickok  has  given 
some  fine  expositions  of  ethical  principle.  Dr.  Hodge  has  done  more  than  any 
living  man  in  the  way  of  expelling  the  errors  that  have  entrenched  themselves  in 
the  border  territory  in  which  Divinity  and  Ethics  meet. 


IN  MORALLY  GOOD  ACTION.  319 

Let  us  now  contemplate  the  soul  of  the  agent  whose  will  is 
acting  in  unison  with  the  moral  law.  Taking  will  in  the  en- 
larged sense  in  which  we  have  been  contemplating  it,  it  must, 
from  its  very  nature  and  position,  exercise  a  powerful  influence 
upon  the  intellect  and  the  affections.  As  seated  at  the  springs 
of  mental  action,  it  can  lay  restraint  upon  the  rising  evil.  In  a 
well-regulated  mind,  that  is,  a  mind  thoroughly  guided  by  the 
moral  faculty,  the  very  intellect  becomes  virtuous,  in  a  sense,  in 
all  its  exercises,  because  ever  restrained  on  the  one  hand,  and 
quickened  on  the  other,  by  a  holy  will.  In  such  a  mind,  too, 
the  sensibility  raised  by  mental  apprehension  or  conception  will, 
like  the  mental  apprehension  and  conception  which  raises  it,  be 
thoroughly  sanctified,  and  become  the  first  reward  which  virtue 
reaps.  We  have  taken  pains  to  show  that  the  will  is  not  the 
same  with  the  intellect  on  the  one  hand,  or  the  emotions  on  the 
other ;  but  there  are  many  mental  affections  in  which  their 
streams  mingle  and  flow  on  together.  There  is  high  moral  good 
in  the  resolute  application  of  the  intellectual  powers  to  great 
and  good  pursuits,  and  assuredly  deep  moral  evil  in  the  wasting 
of  high  gifts  of  which  so  many  men  of  genius  have  been  guilty. 
The  element  of  will  with  its  attached  responsibility  enters  into 
all  feelings  which  rise  beyond  fleeting  emotions,  and  become 
settled  affections,  whether  benign  or  malign. 

In  love,  using  the  term  in  its  highest  sense,  the  main  element 
is  the  will.  The  will  declares  that  this  object,  this  person,  is 
good,  is  to  be  preferred  and  chosen,  and  wishes  well  to  that 
object  or  person  ;  and  these  we  regard  as  the  important  consti- 
tuents of  true  affection.  Take,  as  an  example,  love  to  God. 
Here,  the  will,  in  the  first  instance,  fixes  on  the  Divine  excel- 
lence, and  would  choose  it ;  and  here,  too,  the  will  leads  us  to 
desire  God's  glory,  and  the  furtherance  of  his  will.  Or  take 
love  to  man — disinterested  love  to  man.  Here,  too,  the  will 
leads  us  to  fix  on  living  being  in  general,  and  such  a  being  as 
man  in  particular,  as  an  object  to  be  chosen  by  us,  and  to  wish 
well  to  him,  and  endeavour  to  promote  his  happiness.  It  is  not 
a  mere  excitement  of  mind,  or  a  doting  attachment  to  some  of 
the  race,  (an  attachment  to  all  is  impossible,)  but  a  benevolence, 
a  desire  that  they  may  be  blessed,  holy,  with  a  determination  to 
supply  them,  so  far  as  may  be  in  our  power,  with  all  that  tends 
to  this  end.     The  affection  which  goes  not  this  length  deserves 


320  QUALITIES  WHICH  MUST  MEET 

not  the  name  of  love — it  is  mere  instinct,  like  the  attachment 
of  the  dog  to  its  master,  or  to  its  offspring,  nay,  it  may  become 
utterly  selfish  and  depraved,  entwining  round  the  object  to 
which  it  is  attached  only  to  injure  it,  clasping  it  only  to  ruin  it 
in  its  embrace. 

While  we  regard  the  will  as  the  main  element  in  love,  we 
know,  at  the  same  time,  that  there  are  emotions  so  far  following 
separate  laws ;  but  we  maintain,  that  if  the  will  be  steadfast 
and  consistent,  it  will  draw  the  feelings  after  it,  and  come  to 
guide  them  all.  We  are  quite  aware  that  a  mere  act  of  the 
conscience,  saying  that  such  and  such  an  act  ought  to  be  done, 
but  in  no  way  attended  to  by  the  will,  cannot  produce  such  a 
result ;  nor  will  it  follow  from  a  mere  decision  of  the  judgment, 
that  if  we  do  such  and  such  an  act,  beneficial  consequences  will 
ensue.  It  is  of  the  power  of  the  will  that  we  are  predicating 
that  it  can  accomplish  these  important  ends.  Nor  will  a  single 
act  of  the  will,  or  a  single  wish  or  determination,  in  opposition 
to  the  will  generally  set  in  an  opposite  direction,  change  and 
direct  the  whole  current  of  the  feeling.  The  wicked  man 
wonders  that  he  cannot  love  what  is  good  on  his  making  a 
momentary  resolution  to  do  so.  Truly,  if  a  mere  passing  desire 
to  be  good  could  make  a  man  good,  there  is  perhaps  no  wicked 
man  upon  the  earth  who  would  not  have  been  good  long  ere 
now  ;  for,  we  doubt  if  there  be  any  man  so  depraved,  that  he 
has  not  at  times  had  a  desire  to  become  virtuous.  But  it  would 
be  wonderful  if,  with  a  will  so  habitually  depraved,  the  wicked 
man  could  be  so  easily  led  to  love  what  is  good.  He  wills  at 
this  present  time  to  secure  the  good,  but  next  instant  he  de- 
liberately prefers  the  evil.  When  the  will  is  wavering  and 
inconsistent,  the  sensibility  will  come  to  follow  Its  own  impulses, 
as  it  does  in  every  ill-regulated  mind.  When  the  will  prefers 
the  evil,  and  then  takes  steps  to  paint  the  evil  m  false  colours, 
in  order  to  awaken  the  feeling,  the  perverted  feeling  will  become 
the  most  unequivocal  sign,  and  one  of  the  most  fearful  punish- 
ments of  a  corrupted  will.  Should  the  will,  on  the  other  hand, 
steadily  prefer  the  morally  good,  and  take  pains  to  have  it  ever 
presented  to  the  mind  in  the  proper  light,  it  will  speedily  allure 
the  feelings  whithersoever  it  will,  and  this  must  always  be 
towards  that  which  is  holy  and  good. 

Let  but  this  rudder  of  the  mind  be  rightly  used,  and  it  will 


IN  MORALLY  GOOD  ACTION.  321 

speedily  guide  the  whole  vessel — the  whole  soul,  intellect,  and 

emotions — in  the   right  way,  allowing   them,   meanwhile,   to 

perform  all  their  proper  functions.     How  grand,  how  delicately 

sensitive  would  be  a  soul  so  regulated  !     It  might  be  said  of  it, 

as  Cowper  said  of  the  ocean, — 

"  Vast  as  it  is,  it  answers  as  it  flows 
The  breathing  of  the  lightest  air  that  blows." 

But  the  view  presented  would  be  imperfect,  did  we  not  in- 
clude a 

Third  element, — The  obedience  rendered  should  have  a  re- 
spect to  God.  We  are  not  inclined  to  bring  in  this  as  the 
primary  element,  it  is  in  a  sense  a  derivative  one.  It  presup- 
poses that  we  have  been  brought  to  believe  in  God,  and  the 
independent  moral  law  is  one  powerful  means  of  leading  us  to 
do  so.  But  this  law  in  pointing  to  God,  points  to  him  as  the 
lawgiver,  (vo/ioSeri]*;,  James  iv.  12.)  When  we  view  the  law  as 
appointed  by  God,  it  takes  a  more  definite  form,  and  wears  a 
more  imposing  aspect.  Not  only  so,  but  upon  God  being  made 
known,  the  law  constrains  us  to  acknowledge  that  we  owe 
supreme  love  and  obedience  to  him,  and  this  opens  up  a  new 
and  higher  class  of  duties.  Under  both  aspects  it  turns  morality 
into  religion,  and  makes  all  duties,  even  those  which  we  owe  to 
our  fellow-men,  to  be  also  duties  which  we  owe  to  God.  Here 
the  other  two  elements  of  law  and  love  meet  and  become  one, 
as  they  ascend  to  heaven  in  a  flame  of  holy  affection. 

This  is  the  element,  and  a  most  important  one  it  is,  dwelt 
upon  by  theologians.  But  divines  often  put  it  in  the  wrong 
place  psychologically  and  logically ;  and  represent  the  Divine 
Will  and  the  Divine  Command  as  the  ground  of  virtue.  Doubt- 
less they  intend  thereby  to  benefit  the  cause  of  religion,  but 
they  are  in  reality  doing  it  serious  injury.  The  proper  state- 
ment is  that  a  deed  is  good,  not  because  God  wills  it,  but  that 
he  wills  it  because  it  is  good.  To  reverse  this  order,  is  to  un- 
settle, as  it  appears  to  us,  the  foundations  of  morality.  We 
found  virtue  not  on  the  simple  will  of  God,  but  on  his  holy  will, 
his  will  regulated  by  righteousness,  an  attribute  as  essential  to 
him  as  his  will.  But  it  is  nevertheless  true,  that  the  Supreme 
Being  being  acknowledged  by  us  to  be  the  just  and  holy  law- 
giver, our  morality  may  henceforth  go  clown  deeper  and  mount 
up  higher,  and  we  must  learn  to  have  respect  to  him  in  all  our 

x 


322  QUALITIES  WHICH  MUST  MEET 

offices.  Some  moralists — such  as  Aristotle  in  his  Nicomachean 
ethics — who  acknowledge  the  obligation  of  law,  have  overlooked 
this  element,  but  in  doing  so,  they  have  stopped  short  of  the 
point  to  which  their  principle  of  law  should  have  conducted 
them.  Morality  cannot  attain  its  full  organic  growth,  unless  it 
has  godliness  as  its  vital  power.  The  sacrifice  of  duty  lies  cold 
upon  the  altar  till  it  is  kindled  by  the  flames  of  love  to  God. 

These  elements  are  ever  united  in  true  holiness,  as  the  three 
colours  are  combined  in  the  white  beam.  The  sunbeam  is 
divided  into  several  rays  as  it  reaches  our  atmosphere  and  our 
earth,  and  this  is  for  our  benefit,  inasmuch  as  it  thereby  fur- 
nishes the  infinitely  varied  hues,  and  tints,  and  shades,  which  do 
so  delight  the  eye.  The  pure  light  of  holiness  is  also  separated 
into  parts  on  our  earth,  but,  alas,  it  is  by  the  murky  atmosphere 
of  sin  ;  and  as  the  issue  we  have  those  sad  perversions  and  defects 
found  even  in  the  acts  of  man  which  are  deemed  the  fairest 
and  best.  We  have  a  kindness  without  godliness,  a  morality 
without  religion,  and  a  pharisaic  piety  without  morality  or  love. 
All  these  are  the  effects  of  sin,  which  hath  shattered  and  disse- 
vered our  moral  nature.  Most  common  of  all  we  have  a  worldly 
morality  which  has  no  respect  to  God  ; — why  this  should  be  the 
most  frequent  form  of  the  disseverance  we  shall  explain  in  next 
chapter.  But  assuredly  all  the  three  are  combined  in  one  simple 
affection  in  the  breasts  of  all  pure  intelligences.  It  should  be 
the  effort  of  the  soul  of  man  in  its  regenerating  struggles,  to 
endeavour  to  combine  what  has  thus  been  separated.  This  is 
the  grand  aim  of  the  atonement  provided  in  the  Gospel,  to 
deliver  man  from  the  curse  of  sin,  and  to  set  him  forth  with  aid 
furnished,  on  the  work  of  regaining  that  image  which  had  been 
so  marred  and  defaced. 

"  Whether  therefore  ye  eat,  or  drink,  or  whatsoever  ye  do, 
do  all  to  the  glory  of  God."  This  would  be  no  unpleasant  or 
difficult  work  to  those  whose  hearts  were  pure  and  filled  with 
love  to  God ;  but  how  arduous  to  those  who  have  been  alienated 
from  him  ?  Ah  !  this  rejoining  of  the  dislocated  is  often  felt  to 
be  the  most  difficult  of  all  tasks,  by  those  who  are  striving  after 
the  perfect  man.  They  would  find  it  comparatively  easy  to  do 
the  work — they  may  have  been  doing  it  all  along — but  how 
difficult  to  rise  to  these  pure  and  spiritual  motives  !  It  does  not 
consist  in  taking  any  new  step,  it  may  be,  but  putting  a  new 


IN  MORALLY  GOOD  ACTION.  323 

life  and  motive  into  those  we  were  accustomed  to  take  before. 
We  believe  that  nothing  short  of  the  "  impulsive  power  of  a 
new  affection"  will  accomplish  this.  We  shall  succeed  only 
when  we  do  it  to  Him  who  loved  us  and  gave  himself  for  us. 
But  when  we  are  led  to  set  such  an  aim  before  us,  every  office 
becomes  exalted ;  the  glorious  end  is  made  to  sanctify  every 
lawful  means  employed  to  further  it;  the  meanest  work  is 
ennobled  by  being  made  part  of  the  service  which  we  owe  to 
God  ;  the  poor  man  is  raised  to  the  same  rank  as  the  rich  man, 
and  the  servant  is  as  high  as  his  master.  Such  a  motive  power 
will  make  us  insensible  to  all  the  ordinary  trials  and  tempta- 
tions of  life,  just  as  the  Eoman  army,  when  eagerly  engaged  in 
battle  with  the  enemies  of  their  country,  were  unconscious 
of  an  earthquake  which  made  the  ground  to  tremble  beneath 
their  feet. 

But  it  may  be  proper,  before  leaving  this  subject,  to  add,  that 
besides  the  specific  question,  What  is  a  virtuous  act  ?  there  is  a 
more  general  question,  into  which  the  other  resolves  itself,  What 
constitutes  a  virtuous  agent  ?  The  answer  is,  An  agent  in  whom 
the  moral  faculty  or  law  has  its  proper  place  and  power,  ruling 
over  all,  and  subordinating  the  will  as  the  active  principle. 
The  human  mind  is  a  unity,  and  it  is  impossible  to  separate  the 
acts,  in  regard  to  their  responsibility,  from  the  agent  who  per- 
forms them.  It  is  not  the  act  which  must  bear  the  respon- 
sibility, but  the  agent  who  does  the  act.  God  judges  not  so 
much  the  acts  as  the  agent  in  the  acts.  When  the  actor  is  not 
in  a  right  state — when  his  will  is  not  in  subjection  to  the  law 
appointed  to  rule  it — it  is  not  possible  that  he  can  be  virtuous. 
The  conscience  will  not  justify  him,  and  we  may  conclude  that 
the  God  in  whose  name  the  conscience  speaks  will  condemn  him. 

These  considerations  lead  to  the  conclusion  that  an  agent  in 
a  morally  right  state,  and  no  other,  can  perform  a  morally  right 
action.  It  is  not  enough  to  consider  the  isolated  act,  we  must 
consider  likewise  the  agent  in  the  act,  before  we  can  pronounce 
it  to  be  either  virtuous  or  vicious.  We  hold  this  principle  to 
be  one  of  vast  moment,  both  in  ethics  and  theology,  and  we 
may  return  to  the  consideration  of  it  whea  we  come  to  consider 
the  existing  moral  state  of  man. 


324  PRACTICAL  RULE  DETERMINING  GOOD  AND  EVIL. 

SECT.  VI. — PRACTICAL  RCLE  TO  BE  FOLLOWED  IN  DETERMINING 
WHAT  IS  GOOD  AND  EVIL. 

We  do  not  mean  to  enter  upon  the  practical  interests  involved 
in  the  discussion  of  this  subject.  All  that  is  required  of  us  in 
such  a  treatise  as  this,  is  to  shew  how  the  principles  unfolded 
stand  in  relation  to  the  practical  rule. 

Every  man,  we  have  endeavoured  to  shew,  is  led  by  his  con- 
science to  see  that  he  is  under  law,  which  is  the  law  of  the  God 
who  made  him,  and  who  made  the  universe.  It  is  because  man 
is  under  law,  that  he  can,  by  disobeying  it,  become  a  sinner,  and 
he  made  to  feel  that  he  is  a  sinner ;  for  "  where  there  is  no  law 
there  is  no  transgression."  This  it  is  which  entitles  God  to  call  men 
into  judgment,  and  which  renders  every  sinner  without  excuse. 

To  man,  as  shut  out  from  supernatural  revelation,  the  law  in 
the  heart  is  the  arbiter ;  they  who  have  no  written  law  are  a 
law  unto  themselves.  But  this  arbiter  always  points  to  a  law 
above  itself.  And  there  are  times  when,  even  with  this  monitor, 
the  mind  feels  itself  sadly  bewildered,  not  being  able  with  clear- 
ness to  see  the  path  of  duty  in  perplexing  circumstances,  or  to 
distinguish  between  the  voice  of  conscience  and  that  of  interest  or 
passion.  We  believe  that  the  deepest  feeling  of  conscience  in  the 
breasts  of  the  heathen,  if  they  would  attend  to  it,  and  if  it  could 
find  utterance,  would  give  forth  a  cry  for  a  brighter  light,  for  a 
star  to  guide  them  to  one  whom  they  have  been  in  a  sense  expect- 
ing. Some  of  the  most  deeply  thinking  of  the  Pagan  philosophers 
have  expressed  their  longings  for  a  supernatural  revelation. 

The  existence  of  the  law  in  the  heart  does  not  render  a  writ- 
ten law  unnecessary — perhaps  not  even  to  beings  perfectly  pure. 
Those  who  possess  the  inward  principle  will  find  stability  and 
consistency  imparted  to  morality  by  embodying  its  dictates  in  a 
code  of  precepts.  Hence  every  people  possessing  the  art  of 
writing  has  had  some  sort  of  written  law.  But  the  work  of 
forming  a  moral  code  without  revelation  has  ever  been  felt  to  be 
encompassed  with  great  difficulties,*  and  the  result  of  such  an 

*  according  to  tne  principles  enumerated  in  Note  E,  it  can  only  be  done  by  an 
inductive  generalization  of  the  individual  decisions  of  the  moral  faculty.  But 
besides  that  the  conscience  is  so  misled  by  a  perverted  will,  how  difficult  is  it  to 
seize  and  express,  in  all  their  integrity,  the  principle  involved  in  the  moral 
judgments  ? 


PRACTICAL  RULE  DETERMINING  GOOD  AND  EVIL.  325 

effort  has  invariably  been  a  very  imperfect  and  mutilated  exhi- 
bition of  the  moral  law  itself.  The  moral  power,  if  attended  to, 
will  say  how  much  it  needs  to  have  a  written  law  from  God  to 
guide  it.  Taking  into  account  the  circumstance  that  man's 
conscience  is  perverted,  we  believe  it  to  be  absolutely  necessary, 
in  order  to  its  rectification,  to  have  a  revealed  law  acting  the 
same  part  as  the  dial,  when  it  is  used  to  set  to  right  the  disor- 
dered time-piece. 

But  it  would  be  a  great  mistake  to  suppose  that  the  written 
law  could  have  efficacy  without  the  law  in  the  heart ;  on  the 
contrary,  the  former  pre-supposes,  and  is  especially  addressed  to 
the  latter.  For  how  can  we  be  made  to  know  or  feel  that  we 
are  bound  to  obey  the  written  law  ?  Plainly  by  the  law  in  the 
heart,  which  says,  this  is  right.  Should  it  be  said  that  we  are 
bound  to  render  obedience,  because  it  is  the  law  of  God,  we 
admit  that  we  are  so;  but  at  the  same  time  we  put  the  question, 
How  do  we  know  that  we  are  bound  to  obey  the  will  of  God  ? 
and  the  reply  must  bring  us  to  acknowledge  the  mental  faculty. 
The  inward  principle,  no  doubt,  points  to  an  outward  law,  but 
the  obligation  of  the  outward  law  is  made  known  to  us  by  the 
inward  principle. 

The  practical  rule  of  obedience  to  those  who  are  in  possession 
of  revelation,  is  the  written  law,  as  addressed  to  the  conscience. 
This  revealed  law  is  summed  up  in  love,  but  this  love  rendered 
in  obedience  to  the  law  of  God ;  and  it  will  be  observed  that 
there  is  an  agreement  between  this  and  the  views  which  we 
have  been  giving  of  the  essential  elements  of  the  morally  good. 
Having  such  a  law  sanctioned  by  God,  the  conscience  itself 
declares  that  we  should  study  and  obey  it,  as  the  law  of  God 
our  Governor.  In  the  law  of  the  heart  God  has  a  means  of 
making  us  feel  our  obligation  to  obey  every  other  law,  moral  or 
positive,  which  he  may  superadd  by  a  revelation  of  his  will. 

While  virtue  consists  in  a  willing  obedience  to  moral  law,  it 
is  implied  that  what  we  obey  is  truly  moral  law.  We  must  be 
at  pains  to  inquire  whether  what  we  take  to  be  law  is  really 
moral  law,  or  the  mere  semblance  of  it.  The  greatest  evils 
have  sprung  from  mistakes  on  this  subject,  and  from  misinter- 
preting, under  the  influence  of  sinful  bias,  the  law  of  heaven, 
whether  in  the  conscience  or  in  the  Word.  The  law  itself  re- 
quires that  we  use  all  means  to  determine  what  is  really  the 


326  TENDENCY  OF  YIP.1T0US  ACTION. 


will  of  heaven  on  such  and  such  a  subject,  and  that  we  do  not 
mistake  the  voice  of  inclination  for  the  voice  of  dutv,  or  the 
voice  of  man  for  the  voice  of  God. 

It  is  one  of  the  most  beneficent  of  the  effects  of  the  law  ot 
God  written  in  the  Bible,  that  it  rectifies  the  conscience,  which 
has  become  deranged,  and  bewildered  in  its  derangement,  and 
so  needs  a  hand  to  guide  it  back  to  its  right  position.  It  is 
another  of  its  beneficent  effects  that,  being  used  as  an  instrument 
for  this  purpose  by  a  higher  power,  it  restores  to  the  conscience 
its  primitive  discernment  and  sensibility,  when  it  becomes  a 
constant  monitor  against  evil,  and  a  means  of  prompting  to  all 
excellence. 

SECT.  VII. — TENDENCY  OF  VIRTUOUS  ACTION. 

We  have  endeavoured  to  show  that  there  is  a  holy  quality  in 
virtuous  action  itself,  separate  from  its  tendency  or  results  ;  and 
that  the  human  mind  is  led,  bv  its  verv  nature  and  constitution, 
to  commend  that  quality  and  disapprove  of  the  opposite,  inde- 
pendently of  the  consequences  which  may  follow  from  the  one 
or  the  other.  But  while  the  intuitions,  whether  of  reason  or 
conscience,  are  anterior  to  all  experience  and  observation,  the 
latter  are  continually  furnishing  corroboration  of  the  reality  of 
intuitive  principles.  The  mind,  for  instance,  proceeding  on  a 
certain  instinct  of  thought,  expects  the  same  causes  to  be  always 
followed  by  the  same  effects,  and  it  finds  actual  nature  fulfilling 
its  anticipations.  "Without  such  a  correspondence  between  the 
internal  organization  of  the  mind  and  the  actual  phenomena  of 
the  external  world,  man  would  be  in  a  constant  state  of  amaze- 
ment and  fear.  There  are  also  confirmations  (in  many  respects 
similar,  though  in  others  different)  of  the  reality  and  beauty  of 
the  moral  law  constantly  supplied  by  the  arrangements  of  God. 
It  is  a  most  delightful  corroboration  of  the  intuitive  principle 
and  feeling  which  is  furnished  by  the  discovery  of  the  fact,  that 
all  virtuous  exercises  are  immediately  followed  by  pleasant  sen- 
sations in  the  breast  of  the  virtuous  agent,  and  ultimately  tend 
to  further  the  best  interests  of  society. 

The  phenomena,  to  which  our  attention  is  now  called,  are  of 
a  twofold  character.  There  is  the  internal  and  there  is  the  ex- 
ternal correspondence.     There  are  the  pleasurable  emotions  that 


TENDENCY  OF  VIKTUOUS  ACTION.  327 

accompany  the  cherishing  of  virtuous  affection  ;  and  there  are 
also  the  advantages  accruing  to  society  from  the  performance  of 
virtuous  action.  These  consequences  are  not  individual  or 
isolated,  but  are  rather  of  the  nature  of  classes  or  groups. 

I.  There  is  first  the  pleasant  sensation  that  pervades  the  mind 
when  it  is  cherishing  virtuous  affection.  In  all  virtuous  affec- 
tion there  is  love,  and  this  affection  in  itself  furnishes  delight. 
It  is  a  pleasure  far  higher  and  deeper  than  any  which  can  be 
obtained  from  mere  animal  gratification.  On  the  other  hand, 
all  sinful  affections,  such  as  envy,  malice,  and  revenge,  are  pain- 
ful in  themselves,  and  a  deep  spring  of  misery,  independently  of 
any  visible  judgments  which  they  may  bring  in  their  train. 

Then  there  are,  secondly,  the  pleasurable  emotions  which 
spring  up  on  the  contemplation  of  virtuous  action  as  performed 
by  us.  This  is  a  pleasure  distinct  from,  and  additional  to,  the 
former.  There  is  a  pleasure  in  the  very  cherishing  of  the  vir- 
tuous affection,  and  there  is  a  pleasure  in  the  sentiment  raised 
when  the  moral  faculty  looks  at  these  affections.  The  mind  is 
in  a  state  of  pleasurable  emotion  when  it  is  virtuously  employed; 
and  the  mind  is  also  in  a  state  of  pleasurable  emotion  when  it 
reviews  its  own  virtuous  affections.  There  are  not  only,  for  in- 
stance, the  delightful  sensations  produced  by  holy  love,  but  there 
are  also  the  delightful  sensations  of  moral  approbation,  which 
rise  up  on  the  reflex  contemplation  of  such  affection.  In  this 
respect,  virtuous  affection  has  an  advantage  over  every  other. 
There  are  many  other  affections  of  the  mind  that  are  pleasurable 
in  themselves — such  as  the  desire  of  pleasure,  and  the  sense  of 
beauty — but  no  others  that  have  their  pleasure  indefinitely 
multiplied  by  emotions  which  rise  when  these  affections  are 
reflexly  contemplated.  In  other  cases,  the  pleasure  can  be 
prolonged  only  by  calling  up  anew  the  affection  in  its  positive 
exercise,  which  it  may  not  always  be  possible  to  do.  In  this 
case,  while  the  delightful  sensation  can  be  renewed  by  the  re- 
newed cherishing  of  the  affection,  a  new  and  equally  delightful 
feeling  is  called  forth,  by  the  very  meditation  upon  the  affection. 
The  virtuous  man  has  thus  the  double  pleasure,  somewhat  re- 
sembling the  twofold  sensation  enjoyed  by  those  animals  which 
first  enjoy  the  pleasure  of  eating  their  food,  and  then,  as  they 
recline  at  ease,  the  pleasure  of  ruminating.  Or  to  adopt  an 
image  which  comes  nearer  the  reality,  (in  so  far  as  the  secondary 


328  TENDENCY  OF  VIRTUOUS  ACTION. 

pleasure  is  one  which  can  be  many  times  repeated  :)  the  pleasant 
sound  which  the  soul  utters  to  its  God,  when  it  is  virtuously 
employed,  can  be  indefinitely  prolonged  by  reverberation  from 
the  heights  of  the  moral  faculty  and  the  echoing  responses  of 
the  moral  feelings. 

There  is  a  similar  multiplying  of  the  pain  which  follows  vicious 
action.  All  the  malign  affections  are  painful  in  themselves,  and 
painful  also  iu  the  recollection  of  them ;  and  they  raise  pain  as 
the  mind  reflects  upon  them  with  abhorrence.  The  misery  of 
the  soul  is  immeasurably  increased  by  the  regurgitation  of  feel- 
ings as  they  are  beat  back  by  a  reproaching  conscience. 

There  is,  thirdly,  the  effect  of  virtuous  and  vicious  affection 
upon  the  association  of  ideas.  This  is  a  view  which  has  not  been 
sufficiently  noticed  by  moralists.  It  is  foreign  to  our  present 
purpose  to  enter  into  any  particular  explanation  of  the  pheno- 
menon. The  fact  will  not  be  disputed  by  any  who  are  at  the 
trouble  to  remember  how  soothing  they  have  felt  the  influence  of 
affection,  and  how  harassing  the  movements  of  sinful  passion.  It 
is  evident  that  virtue  possesses  a  power  of  calling  up  a  whole 
train  of  pleasing  thoughts  and  feelings,  and  that  vicious  action  has 
an  equally  powerful  influence  in  leading  away  the  mind  into  an 
opposite  channel,  where  it  meets  with  everything  that  is  disturb- 
ing and  distressing.  The  stream  raises  along  its  banks  a  strip 
of  verdure,  composed  of  rich  grass  and  foliage  or  of  baleful  weeds, 
according  as  its  waters  are  pure  or  impure. 

This  power,  according  to  the  views  above  developed,  is  of  a 
twofold  kind.  There  is,  first,  the  direct  power  which  benevolent 
or  malevolent  affections  possess  of  calling  up  analogous  affections 
with  all  their  pleasant  or  painful  sensations.  By  this  law  of 
association,  virtue  and  vice  propagate  themselves  after  their  kind, 
and  the  species  multiplies  itself.  There  is,  secondly,  the  power 
of  conscience,  with  its  train  of  feelings,  as  it  reviews  virtuous  or 
vicious  action.  The  most  delightful  frames  of  which  the  mind  is 
susceptible,  are  those  that  are  put  in  motion  by  an  approving 
heart.  In  the  rest  which  a  pacified  conscience  gives,  a  solid  peace 
is  raised  up  to  be  a  constant  companion  and  help-meet  for  us. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  bitterest  feelings  which  agitate  the  human 
breast,  are  those  which  follow  in  the  funereal  wake  of  a  condemn- 
ing conscience.  The  pulsations  that  are  thus  set  in  motion  differ 
in  number  and  intensity,  but  they  generally  continue  for  a  time; 


TENDENCY  OF  VIRTUOUS  ACTION.  329 

the  waves  now  carrying  forward  the  mind  to  all  that  is  holy  and 
delightful,  and  again,  when  evil,  casting  it  back  upon  a  waste  and 
barren  shore.  The  delightful  eagerness  and  buoyancy  of  the  vir- 
tuous mind  on  the  one  hand,  as  well  as  the  aching  of  the  vicious 
man's  heart  on  the  other,  proceed  very  much  from  this  cause. 
It  will  appear  in  the  next  Chapter,  that  some  of  the  wicked  man's 
most  maddening  struggles  have  arisen  from  a  desire  to  rid  himself 
of  this  dreadful  gnawing  of  a  mind  which  is  not  at  ease. 

Fourthly,  there  is  the  general  influence  of  virtuous  and  vicious 
affection  upon  the  whole  character.  Independently  altogether  of 
the  immediate  emotions  produced  by  virtuous  affection  and  the 
contemplation  of  virtuous  affection,  and  even  of  the  immediate 
trains  of  feeling  that  follow,  it  has  a  general  tendency  to  put  the 
whole  soul  in  a  sound  and  healthy,  and  therefore  in  a  buoyant 
and  pleasant  state.  This  is  the  most  beneficent  of  all  the  effects 
of  virtue.  It  arises  from  those  nice  arrangements  which  God 
hath  instituted  among  the  various  powers  and  laws  of  the  human 
mind,  precisely  analogous  to  those  adjustments  which  we  admire 
so  much  in  the  material  world.  It  is  by  the  skilful  adaptation  of 
these  laws  of  association  and  feeling,  oue  to  another,  that  virtuous 
affection  tends  to  produce  a  mind  at  ease  and  happy,  and  habitual 
virtue  produces  a  soul  blessed  in  all  its  moods  and  trains  of  sen- 
timent and  feeling.  Peace,  originating  in  virtue  as  its  source,  is 
made  to  shine  upon  the  soul  from  all  its  faculties  and  feelings,  as 
the  light  which  comes  from  the  sun  reflected  from  and  refracted 
in  the  atmosphere,  shines  upon  the  earth  from  every  point,  and 
in  infinitely  diversified  colours.  On  the  other  hand,  the  tendency 
of  vicious  affection  is  to  produce  not  only  the  misery  which 
directly  flows  from  it  emotionally,  and  that  which  springs  from  an 
accusing  conscience ;  but  also  to  breed  a  disordered  mind,  wretched 
in  every  one  of  its  trains  of  thought  and  feeling,  and  lashing 
itself  into  greater  and  more  unappeasable  fury. 

II.  Besides  these  internal  there  are  also  external  pre-ordained 
consequences  following  from  virtuous  or  vicious  action.  These 
spring  from  the  pre-established  harmony  between  the  world 
within  and  the  world  without.  These  effects,  like  those  contem- 
plated under  the  former  head,  may  be  divided  into  various  classes, 
according  as  they  follow  immediately  or  more  remotely. 

First,  there  is  the  immediate  effect  of  virtuous  action.  As 
virtue  consists  in  justice  and  benevolence,  and  modifications  of 


330  TENDENCY  OF  VIRTUOUS  ACTION. 

them,  it  is  manifest,  that  its  exercises  must  usually  consist  in  the 
multiplication  of  happiness ;  while  the  absence  of  virtue,  and 
much  more  the  existence  of  positive  vice,  must  lead  to  conse- 
quences precisely  opposite. 

Secondly,  there  is  the  effect  of  virtue  in  producing  confidence, 
and  of  vice  in  spreading  a  spirit  of  distrust  throughout  society. 
Where  there  is  no  internal  confidence,  no  external  bandage  could 
hold  society  pleasantly  together. 

Besides  these  direct  effects,  there  are,  thirdly,  the  general 
results,  good  and  evil,  that  flow  from  virtue  and  vice,  through 
the  arrangements  of  Divine  providence.  The  success  which 
generally  follows  the  exertions  of  excellence,  and  the  ultimate 
failure  o£  wickedness,  all  attest  that  there  is  a  Governor  in  this 
world  upholding  his  own  laws.  If  it  is  urged  as  an  objection,  that 
in  many  cases  virtue,  especially  in  its  higher  and  bolder  forms, 
is  not  successful ;  and  that  deceit  is  often  allowed  to  triumph, 
the  answer  is  obvious.  While  good  purposes  may  be  served  by 
giving  certain  encouragement  to  goodness,  it  does  not  seem  de- 
sirable to  stimulate  a  mere  artificial  morality,  by  holding  out  the 
certainty  of  success.  Were  virtue  in  every  case  followed  by  its 
merited  triumphs,  there  might  be  a  risk  that  the  triumph  would 
be  more  valued  than  the  qualities  which  led  to  it.  The  general 
countenance  shown  is  sufficient  to  indicate  the  will  of  God  ;  and 
anything  beyond  might  be  attended  with  incidental  evils.  It  is 
also  conceivable,  that  in  a  world  under  probation,  advantage  may 
arise  from  not  exposing  vice  to  instant  failure — there  being  all 
the  while,  in  the  manifold  visible  judgments  of  heaven,  sufficient 
indications  of  the  Divine  hatred  of  sin. 


SECT.  VIII. — GENERAL  VIEW  OF  MAN'S  ORIGINAL  MORAL  CONSTITU- 
TION AS  ILLUSTRATIVE  OF  THE  CHARACTER  OF  GOD. 

If  there  is  any  truth  in  the  above  remarks,  it  will  at  once  be 
seen,  how  deep  a  foundation  God  has  laid  for  morality  in  man's 
original  constitution.  Moral  excellence  is  truly  the  whole  powers 
and  affections  of  the  soul  in  healthy  exercise ;  and  in  order  to 
guard  it,  there  is  a  faculty,  with  a  train  of  corresponding  feelings, 
presiding  over  all  the  other  faculties,  and  seated  in  the  very  heart. 
Besides  the  original  strength  imparted,  and  the  lofty  position 


VIEW  OF  MAN'S  ORIGINAL  MORAL  CONSTITUTION.  331 

assigned  to  it,  it  has  a  whole  train  of  attendants  that  wait  upon 
it  to  obey  its  will,  and  to  do  it  honour  in  the  results  which  flow 
from  it.  It  has  this  high  place  assigned  to  it  in  man's  very  con- 
stitution, which  thus  declares  the  high  value  which  God  sets  upon 
it ;  and  announces,  too,  what  is  the  place  which  we  should  reserve 
for  that  God  whom  it  represents.  It  is  true  that  virtue  has  no 
such  lofty  position  in  man's  present  nature ;  but  still  there  is 
evidence,  in  the  sadly  ruined  building,  that  though  the  tower  so 
battlemented,  turreted,  and  guarded,  has  fallen,  it  was  once  the 
crowning  object  and  defence  of  the  fabric. 

It  has  often  been  disputed  whether  virtue  has  its  seat  among 
the  faculties  or  the  feelings.  This  controversy  has  not  unfre- 
quently  been  a  mere  war  of  words.  Persons  who  deny  that  it 
is  in  the  intellect,  mean  by  intellect,  simply  the  reason  distin- 
guishing between  truth  and  error.  Those  who  deny  that  it  lies 
in  the  feelings,  mean  by  feelings  the  mere  flying  emotions  which 
depend  on  the  temperament  of  the  mind.  When  we  take  a  full 
view,  we  may  discover  both  the  exercise  of  a  faculty  and  the  play 
of  feeling.  In  virtuous  action,  all  the  parts  of  the  soul,  and  not 
merely  one  department  of  it,  are  called  forth  into  vigorous  exer- 
tion. There  is  the  will  followed  by  the  sensibility,  subordinated 
to  the  moral  faculty,  quickened  by  its  appropriate  emotion,  and 
guiding  the  whole  intellectual  powers.  It  is  the  united  anthem 
of  praise,  offered  by  every  part  of  the  human  soul  to  God,  its 
Maker  and  its  King. 

When  the  reflex  moral  faculty,  or  the  conscience,  surveys  vir- 
tuous action,  it  proclaims  it  to  be  good.  This  faculty  in  unfallen 
beings  is  set  as  the  guard  of  virtue,  warning  it  of  danger,  and 
encouraging  it  by  its  smiles  on  the  path  of  well-doing.  But  it 
can  scarcely  be  repeated  too  frequently,  that  the  possession  of 
virtue  and  the  possession  of  conscience  are  not  the  same.  The 
existence  of  a  judge  in  a  land  does  not  prove  that  the  country  is 
free  from  crime ;  nay,  it  seems  rather  to  prove  that  there  is  a 
possibility  of  crime  ;  and  just  as  little  does  the  presence  of  con- 
science prove  that  there  can  be  no  sin  in  the  soul— it  is  rather 
meant  to  warn  us  of  the  danger  of  sin.  In  a  pure  and  well- 
regulated  mind,  the  office  of  conscience  would  have  been  a 
very  easy  and  delightful  one.  Occasionally  giving  warning  of 
danger,  its  grand  office  would  have  been  to  stimulate  the 
virtuous  affections,  by  the  sanctions  which  it  gave,  and  the 


332  VIEW  OF  MAN'S  OEIGIXAL  MORAL  CONSTITUTION' 


rewards  which  it  added,  by  means  of  the  pleasing  emotions 
which  it  excited. 

We  now  feel  as  if  we  had  a  firm  footing;  to  stand  on,  when 
we  rise  from  the  character  of  man  to  the  character  of  God.  If 
the  physical  works  of  God  reflect  the  Divine  power  and  wisdom, 
the  original  moral  constitution  of  man  conducts  us  to  a  belief  in 
still  higher  attributes. 

So  far  as  man  can  judge  from  his  own  nature,  he  must  look 
upon  God  as  distinguished,  not  only  by  the  loftiness  of  his  in- 
tellectual being,  but  by  the  loveliness  of  his  affections.  Some 
persons,  with  the  view  of  exalting  the  Divine  Being,  would, 
with  the  ancient  Stoics,  strip  him  of  everything  that  bears  any 
resemblance  to  will  or  feeling,  as  existing  in  the  human  breast. 
He  has  been  represented  by  such  as  a  mere  abstraction,  calling 
forth  no  affection,  because  cherishing  no  affection.  This  whole 
representation  proceeds  on  the  idea,  that  intellect  is  so  much 
higher  than  benevolence.  Yet  so  far  as  man  is  concerned,  every 
thinking  mind'  must  acknowledge,  that  the  soul  is  existing  in 
its  highest  state  when  it  is  cherishing  a  holy  love ;  and  that 
intellect  is  in  its  highest  exercise  when  it  is  directing  us  to  the 
object  on  which  that  love  is  to  be  fixed.  Take  away  benevo- 
lence from  a  moral  agent,  and  you  take  away  the  very  quality 
of  which  the  moral  faculty  approves.  Take  away  affection, 
warm  and  living  affection  from  God,  and  you  take  away  the 
quality  which  most  endears  God  to  our  souls  ;  you  take  away, 
if  we  may  so  speak,  the  very  heart  of  God — the  heart  which 
loves  us,  and  calls  forth  our  love  in  return. 

In  true  affection  there  is  the  minsrlino;  of  emotion  and  well- 
wishing.  In  emotions,  the  elements,  we  have  seen,  are  excitement 
and  attachment.  In  regard  to  excitement,  there  is  no  reason  to 
think  that  there  is  anything  corresponding  to  it  in  the  bosom  of 
Deity.  But  most  assuredly  there  is  holy  attachment.  We  must 
be  careful,  indeed,  to  elevate  him  above  weak  and  doting  par- 
tialities, and  above  all  that  adhesiveness  which  springs  from  the 
earthly  relationships  of  family,  of  kindred,  and  country ;  still  there 
is  complacency  and  delight  in  the  affection  of  the  Divine  Being 
towards  his  works.  And  higher  than  this,  there  are  benign  sen- 
timents of  grace,  tenderness,  and  compassion,  leading  him  to  feel 
the  deepest  interest  in  the  welfare  of  his  creatures,  and  calling 
forth  corresponding  feelings  in  their  breasts  towards  him. 


AS  ILLUSTRATIVE  OF  THE  CHARACTER  OF  GOD.  333 

These  same  mental  phenomena  conduct  us  to  a  belief  in  an- 
other attribute  of  the  Divine  character.  If  we  are  led  to  believe 
that  there  is  love  in  the  Divine  Being  corresponding  to  virtuous 
affection  in  man,  we  are  led  by  a  like  reason  to  believe  that 
there  is  an  attribute  in  God  corresponding  to  the  moral  faculty 
in  man.  We  are  thus  introduced  to  another  feature  of  the 
Divine  character — to  the  attribute  which  leads  him  to  approve 
of  that  love  which  he  ever  cherishes,  and  to  disapprove  of  every- 
thing of  an  opposite  character.  There  is  not  only  an  infinite 
love  in  the  Divine  mind,  but  a  perfect  justice,  commending, 
exalting,  defending,  and  regulating  that  love. 

It  thus  appears,  that  in  the  character  of  God  there  meet  two 
co-ordinate  moral  attributes — infinite  benevolence  and  infinite 
righteousness.  We  can  conceive  that  there  maybe  persons  who 
wish  that  he  had  only  the  one  of  these  without  the  other — that 
he  had  merely  the  affection  without  the  holiness.  But  our 
wishes  will  not  alter  the  nature  of  God,  or  make  him  different 
from  what  he  is,  and  from  what  his  works  show  him  to  be. 
It  is  easy,  no  doubt,  to  conceive  of  a  being  of  exalted  power, 
who  cares  only  for  the  happiness,  without  looking  to  the  holiness 
of  his  creatures,  and  we  may  call  this  being  God ;  but  he  is  not 
the  living  and  the  true  God  ;  he  is  no  more  the  really  existing 
God  who  is  thus  pictured  by  us,  than  are  the  idols  which  the 
heathens  make  and  worship.  The  one  is  as  much  the  creation 
of  men's  fancy,  as  the  others  are  the  workmanship  of  men's 
hands.  If  you  ask,  Why  is  his  justice  so  unbending  ?  we  can 
only  answer  that  such  is  his  very  nature  ;  and  that  justice  is  as 
essential  to  the  character  of  God,  as  even  wisdom,  or  power,  or 
goodness.  Nor  can  the  wishes,  the  complaints  of  sinful  men  or 
fallen  angels,  render  him  less  strictly  inflexible  in  his  justice. 
Were  he  without  this  attribute,  or  were  this  attribute  not  in- 
finite, he  could  not  be  a  perfect  God,  our  own  minds  being  the 
judges.  For  we  have  discovered  that  in  our  own  souls  which 
testifies  that  God  is  holy,  and  approving  of  the  exercise  of  this 
his  holiness. 

We  are  thus  enabled,  too,  to  explain  in  some  measure  the 
relation  of  the  Divine  love  to  the  Divine  holiness.  These  have 
often  been  represented  as  antagonist  principles ;  and  yet  truly 
they  are  not  so,  though  there  are  conceivable  and  actual  circum- 
stances in  which  their  separate  action  might  seem  to  tend  in 


334        view  of  man's  original  moral  constitution. 

opposite  ways.  In  themselves  they  are  conspiring;,  and  not  con- 
flicting principles.  When  Divine  love  is  exercised,  it  has  the 
approbation  of  Divine  holiness  ;  and  Divine  holiness  is  exercised 
in  honouring  and  guarding  Divine  love.  God  is  love,  is  in  his 
very  will  and  affections  love,  and  is  led  by  his  very  nature  to 
approve  of  that  love  which  is  in  his  very  essence. 

Let  it  be  observed,  however,  that  holiness  is  something  more 
than  the  mere  love  of  promoting  happiness.  It  is  not  so  much 
the  love  of  promoting  happiness,  as  the  love  of  that  pure  love 
which  seeks  the  promotion  of  happiness.  This  attribute,  in  one 
sense,  is  inferior  to  love,  because  its  proper  exercise  consists  in 
approving  of  love,  and  in  guiding  love.  In  another  sense,  it  is 
the  highest  attribute  in  the  Divine  nature,  higher  than  bene- 
volence itself,  for  it  sits  in  judgment  upon  benevolence,  which  it 
proclaims  to  be  supremely  and  ineffably  good,  and  regulates  and 
directs  that  benevolence.  Let  us  look  up  with  equal  admiration 
upon  both,  as  constituting  the  two  polar  forces  of  the  moral 
universe,  the  two  essential  elements  of  the  moral  perfection  of 
God. 


NATURE  OF  JUDGMENTS  PRONOUNCED  BY  THE  CONSCIENCE.  335 


CHAPTER  II. 

ACTUAL  MORAL  STATE  OF  MAN. 

SECT.  I. — NATURE  OF  THE  JUDGMENTS  PRONOUNCED  BY  THE 

CONSCIENCE. 

The  two  inductive  methods  of  acquiring  knowledge  in  physical 
science  are  observation  and  experiment.  It  has  been  doubted 
whether  the  latter  can  be  employed  in  investigating  the  pro- 
cesses of  the  human  mind ;  and  it  should  at  once  be  admitted 
that  it  requires  certain  modifications  in  order  to  suit  it  to  the 
new  object  to  which  it  is  directed.  Even  in  the  physical  sciences, 
experiment  in  chemistry  is  somewhat  different  from  experiment 
in  mechanics,  and  experiment  in  physiology  is  different  from 
experiment  in  unorganized  bodies ;  and  we  must  expect  it  to 
require  some  change  before  it  can  be  applied  to  a  spiritual  sub- 
stance. While  it  is  most  dangerous  in  some  cases,  and  difficult 
in  all,  to  experiment  on  the  human  mind,  it  may  be  safely  and 
confidently  asserted  that  experiment  can  be  wrought  upon  it. 
We  suspect  that  the  poet  Byron  artificially  put  his  mind  in  cer- 
tain states  with  the  view  of  calling  forth  those  gloomy  ideas  and 
convulsive  feelings  which  he  has  embodied  in  his  poetry.  Such 
experiments,  it  must  be  acknowledged,  are  very  perilous,  more 
so  than  those  which  Davy  tried  with  inflammable  gases,  or  than 
those  which  Hahnemann,  the  founder  of  the  Homoeopathic 
school  of  medicine,  wrought  upon  the  bodily  frame,  when  he 
tried  upon  himself  and  upon  a  few  friends  those  medicines  which 
he  adopted  into  his  code.  But  the  mental  philosopher  needs  to 
submit  to  no  such  painful  processes  as  those  to  which  poets  have 
subjected  their  feelings,  and  to  which  anatomists  have  exposed 
their  own  bodies  and  those  of  the  lower  animals.  It  is  only 
requisite  that  he  present  before  the  mind  an  object  fitted  to  set 


336  NATURE  OF  THE  JUDGMENTS 

in  action  the  particular  faculty  or  feeling  which  he  purposes  to 
examine,  and  then  carefully  note  the  result.  No  faculty  can  be 
so  successfully  operated  on  in  the  way  of  experiment,  as  well  as 
in  the  way  of  observation,  as  the  conscience.  It  is  a  reflex 
faculty — Butler  calls  it  the  faculty  of  reflection — judging  of  the 
dispositions  and  voluntary  acts  of  responsible  beings.  In  order 
to  detect  the  law  of  its  operations,  all  that  is  required  is  to  bring 
these  mental  states  before  it,  and  mark  its  judgments ;  and  the 
decisions  of  this  supreme  court  give  us  a  correct  exposition  of 
the  laws  of  the  kingdom.  This  can  be  done  as  easily  as  material 
substances  can  be  brought  under  the  power  of  the  magnet  or 
galvanic  wire.  Care  must  be  taken,  in  the  one  case  as  in  the 
other,  to  separate  between  what  is  essential  and  what  is  acciden- 
tal, and  this  may  be  done  most  successfully  by  varying  the  ex- 
periments, or  performing  them  in  new  and  different  circum- 
stances. In  particular,  pains  must  be  taken,  in  examining  the 
decisions  of  the  moral  faculty,  to  distinguish  between  its  work- 
ings and  those  of  certain  cognate  feelings,  and  particularly  of 
the  sympathetic  emotions,  which  are  so  strong  in  our  nature. 
These  feelings,  if  we  be  not  on  our  guard  against  them,  will 
completely  disturb  the  operations  of  the  conscience,  just  as  the 
iron  in  a  ship  disturbs  the  action  of  a  magnet.  In  such  cases, 
allowance  must  be  made  for  the  disturbing  agent,  or  rather  the 
object  must  be  placed  before  the  mind  in  such  a  way  that  the 
deflecting  circumstance  cannot  operate. 

It  is  after  this  manner  that  we  would  proceed  to  observe  and 
experiment  on  the  workings  of  the  conscience  with  the  view  of 
noting  its  decisions,  and  thereby  arriving  at  an  exact  estimate  of 
the  present  moral  condition  of  man.  At  this  point  we  have  to 
leave  all  the  ordinary  academic  and  scholastic  writers  on  ethics 
behind  us  ;  but  we  are  careful  to  take  with  us  all  the  important 
truths  regarding  the  essential  and  indestructible  principles  ot 
man's  moral  nature  which  they  have  succeeded  in  establishing. 
We  can  admire  with  them  the  beauty  of  the  constitution  of  man's 
moral  nature,  but  we  have  often  wondered  that  they  have  not 
seen  the  wide  incongruity  between  their  glowing  descriptions  of 
man  as  he  ought  to  be,  and  the  exhibitions  given  in  our  own 
hearts,  and  in  the  world,  of  man  as  he  actually  is.  We  are  not 
inclined,  indeed,  to  agree  with  many  otherwise  excellent  divines 
in  slighting  the  intimations  of  conscience  in  man's  nature ;  in  this 


PRONOUNCED  BY  THE  CONSCIENCE.  337 

respect  we  hold  by  the  doctrines  so  firmly  established  by  the 
philosophers.  But,  then,  adopting  these  very  principles  of  the 
philosophers,  taking  with  us  their  declarations  in  regard  to  the 
authority  of  the  conscience,  we  would  bring  them  to  bear  upon 
the  existing  state  of  man. 

In  doing  so,  however,  it  may  be  useful  to  observe  a  little  more 
minutely  some  of  the  lawrs  of  the  working  of  the  conscience. 

First,  It  is  of  mental,  and  of  mental  acts  exclusively,  that  the 
conscience  judges.  It  has  no  judgment  whatever  to  pronounce 
on  a  mere  bodily  act.  We  look  out  at  the  window,  and  we  see 
two  individuals  in  different  places  chastising  two  different  chil- 
dren. The  conscience  pronounces  no  judgment' in  the  one  case 
or  the  other,  whatever  the  feelings  may  do,  until  we  have  learned 
the  motives  which  have  led  to  the  performance  of  the  acts.  If 
upon  inquiry  we  find  the  motive  in  the  one  case  to  be  the  ex- 
treme care  which  the  parent  takes  of  the  moral  wellbeing  of 
his  child,  and  in  the  other  case  to  be  blind  passion,  we  now 
approve  of  the  one  individual  and  disapprove  of  the  other ;  but 
let  it  be  observed,  that  the  conscience  pronounces  its  judgment 
not  on  the  outward  actions,  but  on  the  internal  motives  and 
feelings. 

Secondly,  It  is  of  acts  of  the  will,  and  of  acts  of  the  icill 
exclusively^  that  the  conscience  judges.  In  saying  so,  we  use 
will  in  a  large  sense,  as  large  as  that  department  which  has  been 
allotted  to  it,  we  believe,  by  God  in  the  human  mind.  We  em- 
ploy it  to  include  every  exercise  of  mind  in  which  there  is 
choice,  consent,  preference,  active  rejection,  wish,  or  intention. 
But  these  may  extend  themselves  over  acts  of  the  mind  which 
do  not  spring  directly  from  the  will.  There  are,  we  admit, 
spontaneous  affections  in  the  soul  originating  in  instinctive  or 
habitual  tendencies,  and  apart  from  any  voluntary  excitation  ot 
them.  Are  these,  it  may  be  asked,  neither  morally  good  nor 
evil  ?  The  answer  is,  that  they  may,  provided  on  the  one  hand 
the  will  has  by  some  previous  act  produced  these  tendencies,  or 
provided  it  now  gives  its  adherence  to  them  by  attaching  its  con- 
sent, concurrence,  or  co-operation  ;  for  wherever  the  will  enters, 
it  carries  with  it  responsibility.  What  is  now  a  spontaneous 
tendency  may  have  been  produced  by  a  succession  of  voluntary 
acts  good  or  evil.  Or  the  will  may  now  be  aiding  and  abetting 
the  inclination  to  evil.     A  man  reads  an  obscene  book,  and  im- 


338  NATURE  OF  THE  JUDGMENTS 

pure  imaginations  rise  up  in  his  mind,  and  the  moral  censor 
condemns  the  act,  because  he  has  been  voluntarily  doing  what  is 
fitted  to  call  forth  evil.  Nay,  when  the  spontaneous  impulse 
tends  to  evil,  and  is  not  instantly  restrained,  the  will  must  bear 
the  blame  of  the  results.  In  such  ways  as  these  the  will  may 
associate  itself  with  every  affection  and  action  of  the  mind,  and 
thus  render  them  praise-worthy  or  blame-worthy.  With  this 
explanation  the  maxim  will  commend  itself,  that  voluntariness 
is  implied  in  all  actions  on  which  the  conscience  pronounces 
its  sentence. 

Thirdly,  The  conscience  approves  and  disapproves  not  of 
isolated  acts  merely,  but  also  of  the  mind  or  agent  manifested 
in  these  acts.  The  conscience  judges  according  to  truth,  and 
regards  all  mental  acts  as  the  mind  acting,  and  pronounces  its 
verdict,  not  so  much  on  the  abstract  act  as  on  the  mind  volun- 
tarily acting  in  them.  This  may  seem  an  unnecessarily  meta- 
physical method  of  expressing  an  obvious  truth,  but,  in  the 
sequel,  it  will  be  found  of  no  little  consequence  to  be  able 
precisely  to  determine  what  is  the  object  at  which  the  conscience 
looks,  and  on  which  it  pronounces  its  judgments. 

Fourthly,  The  conscience  pronounces  its  decision  on  the  state 
of  mind  of  the  responsible  agent  as  the  same  is  presented  to  it. 
It  is  not  the  business,  or  at  least  the  direct  office  of  the  con- 
science, to  determine  what  is  the  precise  mental  state — what  is 
the  wish,  desire,  intention,  or  resolution,  of  any  responsible 
agent.  This  must  be  ascertained  by  the  usual  rules  and  laws 
of  evidence,  and  by  the  use  of  the  ordinary  intellectual  faculties. 
It  is  upon  the  voluntary  acts  of  the  mind,  as  they  are  represented 
to  it,  that  the  conscience  utters  its  sentence.  Thus,  in  the  case 
which  we  have  put  of  the  two  parents  chastising  their  children, 
the  one  act  presented  to  the  conscience  is  that  of  a  parent 
seeking,  by  proper  punishment,  to  correct  vice,  and  the  other 
act  is  that  of  an  individual  cherishing  passion,  and  acting  upon 
it.  It  is  upon  this  representation  that  the  conscience  proceeds, 
and,  provided  the  representation  be  correct,  the  decision  will  be 
sound.  But  let  it  be  observed,  that  the  representation  may  be 
an  erroneous  one.  Under  the  influence  of  hasty  feeling  or  pre- 
judice, we  may  have  formed  very  incorrect  judgments  as  to  the 
real  state  of  mind  of  the  individuals  whose  conduct  we  have  been 
observing.     While  the  conscience  has  pronounced  verdicts  wrhich 


PRONOUNCED  BY  THE  CONSCIENCE.  339 

are  righteous  in  themselves,  they  may  be  mistaken  in  regard  to 
the  given  individual ;  for  the  one  parent  may  not  have  been 
under  the  influence  of  such  high-minded  virtue,  nor  the  other 
the  slave  of  passion,  as  has  been  supposed.  The  conscience  is  in 
the  position  of  a  barrister,  whose  opinion  is  asked  in  matters  of 
legal  difficulty.  In  both  cases  the  judgment  given  proceeds  on 
the  supposed  accuracy  of  a  representation  submitted,  but  which 
may  be  very  partial,  or  very  perverted. 

It  follows — Fifthly,  That  there  may  be  much  uncertainty  or 
confusion,  or  positive  error,  in  the  judgments  of  the  conscience, 
because  given  upon  false  representations.  All  the  actions  of 
man  are  of  a  concrete  character ;  by  far  the  greater  number  of 
his  voluntary  acts  are  of  a  very  complex  nature  ;  and  so  it  is 
difficult  for  the  individual  himself,  and  still  more  difficult  for  a 
neighbour,  to  determine  what  are  the  precise  motives  by  which 
he  is  influenced  in  any  given  act.  The  springs  of  human  action 
are  often  as  difficult  to  be  discovered  as  the  true  fountains  of  the 
great  African  rivers,  which  rise  so  far  in  the  unapproachable 
interior  ;  and  there  is  room  for  endless  disputes  as  to  what  is  the 
originating  and  original  motive,  without  which  the  act  would  not 
have  been  purposed  or  performed  ;  and  when  we  have  fixed  on 
any  one  source,  we  are  not  sure  that  there  may  not  be  others 
which  could  dispute  with  it  the  pre-eminence. 

Meanwhile  the  conscience  will  pronounce  its  verdict  upon  the 
action  according  to  the  representation  given  by  the  other  facul- 
ties of  the  mind.  Present  a  concrete  action,  more  particularly 
if  a  complex  one,  under  one  aspect,  and  the  conscience  will 
approve  of  it ;  present  it  under  a  different  aspect,  and  the  con- 
science will  disapprove  of  it.  Let  warlike  achievements,  for 
instance,  be  looked  at  in  the  light  of  deeds  of  chivalry,  romance, 
and  courage,  and  the  mind  will  be  elevated  by  the  very  con- 
templation of  them  ;  and  the  clang  of  the  trumpet  will  not  so 
effectually  stir  up  the  war-horse,  as  the  narrative  of  the  exploits 
of  heroes  will  awaken  enthusiasm.  But  let  us  now  contemplate 
the  same  actions  under  a  different  aspect ;  let  us  see  the  blood 
flowing  in  torrents,  and  hamlets  and  cities  in  flames;  let  us 
hear  the  groans  of  the  wounded  and  dying,  and  the  wails  of 
the  widows  and  orphans,  as  the  news  are  brought  to  them  of 
the  friends  that  they  have  lost;  let  us  inspect  the  hearts  of 
the  leaders  in  the   combat,   and   observe  the  reigning  pride, 


340  NATURE  OF  THE  JUDGMENTS 

ambition,  and  jealousy ;  let  us  look  into  the  hearts  of  their 
followers,  and  as  we  discover,  besides  the  momentary  excite- 
ment produced  by  the  battle,  nothing  beyond  a  mercenary 
transaction,  or  the  compulsory  following  of  a  chieftain — then 
our  feelings  change,  and  the  scene  is  regarded  with  abhorrence 
and  disgust. 

It  follows,  that  the  conscience  of  two  different  individuals,  or 
of  the  same  individual  at  two  different  times,  may  seem  to  pro- 
nounce two  different  judgments  on  the  same  deed.  We  say  seem, 
for  in  reality  the  two  deeds  are  different,  and  the  judgments 
differ,  because  the  deeds,  as  presented  to  the  conscience,  are 
not  the  same.  Thus,  in  the  case  which  we  have  put,  it  is  in  the 
one  instance  the  supposed  devoteclness  and  magnanimity  that 
are  commended  ;  and  in  the  other,  it  is  upon  the  selfishness  and 
cruelty  of  the  parties  that  the  condemnation  is  heaped.  When 
Mercury  stole  Apollo's  harp,  Apollo  was  at  first  inclined  to  be 
angry  ;  but  afterwards  forgot  the  crime  in  his  admiration  of  the 
skill  displayed  in  the  perpetration  of  it.  The  Greeks,  in  this 
fable,  furnish  in  the  persons  of  their  gods  a  true  picture  of 
human  nature,  and  of  the  tendency  of  mankind  to  overlook  the 
moral  qualities  of  actions,  and  fix  their  attention  on  other 
features,  fitted  to  call  forth  other  than  moral  feelings. 

From  the  general  cause  now  referred  to  have  proceeded,  if 
we  do  not  mistake,  those  irregularities  and  apparent  inconsist- 
encies in  the  decisions  of  conscience  which  have  so  puzzled  and 
confounded  ethical  and  metaphysical  inquirers.  The  approval 
which  was  thought  to  have  been  given  by  the  conscience  to  the 
widow  burning  herself  on  the  funeral  pile  of  her  husband  in 
India,  and  to  deceit  when  successful  among  the  ancient  Spartans, 
and  to  the  murder  of  children  in  the  South  Sea  islands,  and  the 
exposing  of  the  aged,  and  of  helpless  children  in  Africa — all 
originate  in  false  views  presented  of  the  devotedness  of  the 
widow,  of  the  heroism  of  the  Spartan  youth  who  succeeds  in 
compassing  a  difficult  end,  and  of  the  misery  to  which  the  help- 
less, whether  from  youth  or  age,  might  be  exposed,  if  left  to 
drag  out  an  existence  for  the  sustenance  of  which  no  adequate 
provision  could  be  made. 

It  is  becoming  evident,  that  the  conscience  may  be  in  the 
breast  of  an  individual,  and  exerting  itself  in  a  kind  of  way, 
while  his  whole  moral  judgments  are  utterly  perverted. 


PRONOUNCED  BY  THE  CONSCIENCE.  341 

Sixthly,  The  decisions  of  the  conscience  are  of  various  kinds. 
They  may  be  classified  as  follows: — First,  it  authoritatively 
demands  that  certain  actions  be  done.  Secondly,  it  authorita- 
tively insists  that  certain  actions  be  not  done.  Thirdly,  it 
declares  that  the  performance  of  the  first  class  of  actions  is 
good,  commendable,  rewardable.  Fourthly,  it  announces  that 
the  omission  of  the  first,  or  commission  of  the  second  class  is 
wrong,  condemnable,  punishable.  Philosophic  moralists  have 
confined  their  attention  almost  exclusively  to  the  first  or  the  first 
and  third  of  these  classes  of  decisions,  and  have  not  dared  to  look 
fairly  at  the  other  two,  and  at  the  consequences  which  necessarily 
flow  from  them.  Yet  the  second  and  fourth  are  as  certainly  and  as 
loudly  proclaimed  as  the  first  and  third.  It  is  by  the  fourth  that 
there  is  awakened  a  sense  of  guilt — a  sentiment  no  less  strongly 
impressed  on  man's  mind  than  a  sense  of  merit.  It  is  by  it, 
too,  that  there  is  raised  up  that  fear  of  a  supernatural  power, 
and  of  coming  judgments,  which  is  felt  at  times  at  least  by  all 
savage  tribes,  indeed  by  all  mankind,  except  in  so  far  as  it  may 
be  suppressed  by  speculative  unbelief  or  artificial  means.  The 
feeling  of  reproach  as  to  the  past,  and  of  apprehension  as  to  the 
future,  is  one  of  the  characteristics  of  humanity,  and  he  who 
overlooks  it,  has  lost  sight  of  one  of  the  most  striking  qualities 
in  our  nature,  and  must  have  in  consequence  a  very  imperfect, 
nay  a  positively  erroneous  view  of  man's  moral  condition.  It  is 
this  sentiment  which,  more  than  anything  else,  has  retained  the 
idea  of  God — in  some  cases  very  vaguely — among  all  nations  ; 
it  is  upon  it  that  the  Christian  missionary  seeks  to  operate  in 
addressing  heathen  nations  ;  it  is  this  same  feeling  which  con- 
strains all  men  to  feel,  at  least  on  certain  occasions,  that  they 
need  a  religion.  The  moral  monitor  in  man  closes  all  its  pro- 
clamations by  pointing  to  God  as  a  Judge  and  to  a  day  of 
righteous  retribution. 

SECT.  II. INFLUENCE  OF  A  DEPRAVED  WILL  UPON  THE  MORAL 

JUDGMENTS. 

The  will,  we  have  seen,  is  the  seat  of  responsibility.  At  the 
side  of  the  will,  which  is  free,  God  hath  placed  in  the  soul  a  law 
which  is  fixed.  The  morally  good  consists  in  the  conformity  of 
the  free  will  to  the  fixed  law.     Sin,  on  the  other  hand,  consists 


342  INFLUENCE  OF  A  DEPRAVED  WILL 

essentially  in  the  will  refusing  to  submit  itself  to  the  moral  law 
of  God.  Let  us  now  suppose  that  the  will  of  a  responsible  being 
has  set  itself  free  from  the  restraints  of  the  moral  law.  Let  us 
suppose  that  man  is  such  a  being — we  say  suppose,  for  at  present 
we  assume  it,  leaving  the  proof  till  afterwards.  We  are  now  to 
shew  that  this  perverted  and  rebellious  will  may  come  to  exercise 
a  reflex  influence  for  evil  upon  the  decisions  of  the  conscience. 

It  is  not  difficult  to  explain  this  phenomenon  of  the  influence 
of  the  will  upon  the  other  faculties  of  the  mind.  Dr.  Brown  has 
some  ingenious  speculations  on  this  subject.  "  That  it  is  of  the 
very  nature  of  emotions  to  render  more  vivid  all  the  mental 
affections  with  which  they  are  peculiarly  combined,  as  if  their 
own  vivacity  were  in  some  measure  divided  with  these,  every  one 
who  has  felt  any  strong  emotion  must  have  experienced.  The 
eye  has,  as  it  were,  a  double  quickness  to  perceive  what  we  love 
or  hate — what  we  hope  or  fear.  Other  objects  may  be  seen 
slightly ;  but  these,  if  seen  at  all,  become  instantly  permanent, 
and  cannot  appear  to  us  without  impressing  their  presence  in 
stronger  feeling  on  our  senses  and  on  our  soul.''*  He  then 
shews  how  this  vividness,  producing  a  permanence  of  the  emotion, 
influences,  in  a  powerful  manner,  the  whole  train  of  association. 
We  are  not  quite  sure,  however,  that  this  is  an  adequate  explan- 
ation of  the  phenomena.  The  emotional  nature  of  any  state  of 
mind  must  of  course  produce  liveliness  ;  and  this  liveliness  may, 
according  to  some  law  of  the  human  mind,  have  an  influence 
upon  that  state  of  mind.  But  it  is  not  to  be  forgotten  that  the 
liveliness  is  one  thing,  and  the  permanence  another  thing, 
though  Dr.  Brown  seems  to  slide  unconsciously  from  the  one  to 
the  other.  The  permanence  of  a  thought,  accompanied  with 
will,  arises,  we  maintain,  from  the  direct  power  of  the  will 
retaining  the  thought. 

We  are  quite  aware  that  the  will  cannot  directly  call  up  any 
absent  idea,  or  any  idea  not  immediately  before  the  mind.  To 
will  a  given  recollection  into  existence,  is  already  to  be  in  pos- 
session of  that  recollection.  But  the  mind,  while  yet  without 
the  precise  recollection,  may  know  that  there  is  a  recollection 
which  it  is  desirable  to  recall.  If  we  have  forgot,  for  example, 
the  name  of  an  individual,  whose  person  and  character  we  dis- 
tinctly remember,  we  cannot  by  the  direct  power  of  the  will 

*  Lect.  31. 


UPON  THE  MOKAL  JUDGMENTS.  343 

call  up  the  name  ;  but  by  an  act  of  the  will,  we  may  keep  the 
recollection  of  the  man's  person  and  character  before  us,  till  his 
name  is  suggested  by  the  natural  process  of  association. 

The  will  has  thus  a  direct  and  an  indirect  power  over  the 
train  of  thought  and  feeling.  It  has  a  direct  power  in  retain- 
ing any  given  thought  or  idea  ;  for  as  long  as  the  will  to  retain 
it  exists,  that  very  will  keeps  the  idea  before  the  mind.  The 
will  has  also  a  most  important  indirect  influence.  In  detaining 
any  given  idea  or  recollection,  it  can  command  a  whole  train  of 
association  connected  with  it.  In  retaining  the  idea  of  a  mother, 
for  instance,  and  dwelling  upon  it,  it  may  recall  all  the  pleasant 
scenes  of  childhood,  of  tenderness  and  unwearied  care,  that  are 
associated  with  her.  The  will  has  also  a  power  of  driving 
away  an  unpleasant  thought,  not  directly  but  indirectly,  by 
willingly  following  other  trains,  and  taking  steps  to  call  up  such 
trains  of  association.  We  wish,  let  us  suppose,  to  banish  the 
recollection  of  some  wound  or  sore  which  grates  on  our  sensi- 
bility: we  cannot  do  so  directly,  but  we  can  accomplish  our 
end  effectually,  by  rushing  into  some  other  scene  fitted  to  inter- 
est us,  and  there  following  the  train  of  conception  that  is  started. 
Or  we  wish  to  rid  ourselves  of  the  recollection  of  an  unhand- 
some, ungenerous  deed  which  has  been  done  to  us :  we  cannot 
effect  this  by  dwelling  on  the  deed,  but  we  may  accomplish  our 
end  by  meditating  on  some  other  subject,  as  upon  the  far 
greater  provocation  which  we  ourselves  have  given  to  our 
heavenly  Lord. 

It  appears,  then,  that  in  the  influence  exercised  by  the  will, 
there  is  first  the  retention  of  a  fixed  idea,  and  then  the  cluster- 
ing around  this  of  other  ideas,  with  their  corresponding  feelings. 
And  let  us  suppose  that  the  ideas  suggested  are  fitted  to  raise 
emotions,  there  will  now  not  onlv  be  the  influence  of  the  will, 
but  of  the  emotions  which  are  excited.  But  conceptions  of 
moral  good  and  evil  are  all  accompanied  with  emotions  more 
or  less  lively,  as  are  also  all  the  objects  which  are  fitted  to  sway 
the  will.  It  is  easy  to  understand,  then,  how  in  all  cases  in 
which  the  conscience  and  will  are  in  joint  operation  there 
should  be  the  influence  of  emotion.  Now,  it  is  a  law  of  mental 
operation  that  emotions  tend  to  quicken  the  train  of  ideas  in 
the  mind.  When  the  mind  is  in  an  emotional  state,  the  thoughts 
flow  as  in  torrents,  and  the  feelings  fly  as  with  a  hurricane 


344  INFLUENCE  OF  A  DEPRAVED  WILL 

velocity.  In  the  phenomena  now  to  be  considered,  there  may 
thus  be  a  power  of  will  retaining  a  radical  thought,  and  a  power 
of  emotion  collecting  around  it  a  rapid  succession  of  thoughts 
and  feelings. 

The  tendency  of  will  and  desire  is  to  retain  the  favourite 
thought  and  feeling.  The  tendency  of  emotion,  on  the  other 
hand,  is  to  accelerate  the  mental  states.  This  difference  of  in- 
fluence on  the  train  of  association  is  one  of  the  many  proofs 
which  may  be  urged  to  establish  the  difference  between  the 
optative  and  emotional  parts  of  man's  nature.  But  while  desire 
and  emotion  are  different,  desire  is  commonly  connected  with 
emotion,  inasmuch  as  the  objects  which  lead  to  desire  also  stir 
up  emotion.  It  is  to  the  power  of  emotion  that  we  owe,  to 
some  extent,  the  immense  number  of  ideas  and  feelings  which 
are  congregated  round  a  common  point,  while  we  owe  the  sta- 
bility of  the  point  of  attraction  not  to  the  emotion  connected 
with  the  desire,  but  to  the  desire  itself.  We  desire  that  a  friend, 
a  mother  in  ill  health,  may  recover ;  and  we  owe  the  number 
of  the  plans  of  recovery  suggested  to  the  rapidity  of  thought 
caused  by  the  emotions  which  the  very  conception  of  that  mother 
raises  ;  but  we  owe  the  continuance  of  the  fundamental  thought 
to  the  influence  of  a  deeper  part  of  our  constitution  obeying 
very  different  laws.  The  desire,  in  short,  is  the  central  body, 
and  the  thoughts  and  emotions  the  lesser  bodies  which  dance 
around  it.  No  doubt,  that  central  body  has  also  its  motions, 
but  they  are  round  another  centre,  constituting  the  true  motive 
power  of  the  human  mind. 

In  all  those  states  of  mind  in  which  we  have  both  will  and 
emotion,  we  have  thus  a  double  class  of  phenomena,  a  principle 
of  permanence  and  a  principle  of  change — a  continuous  thought, 
and  a  succession  of  thoughts — a  centre,  and  bodies  circling  round 
it.  We  have  the  same  things  as  the  ancient  Komans  had  when 
the  body  of  Virginia  was  brought  forth  to  the  people ;  or  when 
Antony  exposed  the  body  of  Caesar — lifting  up  the  toga,  exhibit- 
ing to  the  people  the  blood-stained  garment,  and  pointing  to  the 
wounds  by  which  their  friend  had  been  murdered — till  the 
multitude,  under  a  tumult  of  feelings  excited  by  the  object 
before  them,  tore  in  pieces  those  who  were  supposed  to  be  asso- 
ciated with  the  murder,  and  demolished  or  burnt  the  houses  of 
the  conspirators.     And  so,  too,  in  the  will  there  is  an  object 


UPON  THE  MORAL  JUDGMENTS.  345 

continuously  presented  before  the  mind,  and  this  object  gathering 
round  it  a  whole  host  of  feelings. 

The  intense  desire  thus  keeps  the  thought  fixed,  and  the  feel- 
ings keep  other  thoughts  playing  around  it.  When  the  object 
is  of  a  pleasant  kind,  and  is  agreeably  associated,  all  the  feelings 
are  of  a  delightful  nature,  and  the  desire  becomes  a  source  and 
centre  of  happiness  diffused  around  it,  as  heat  is  from  a  fire,  as 
light  is  from  the  sun.  On  the  other  hand,  when  the  object 
contemplated  is  painful,  when  it  is  the  desire  to  avoid  punish- 
ment, for  instance,  or  to  flee  from  an  angry  God,  then  the  feel- 
ings, while  intensely  active,  are  all  intensely  distressing,  and  the 
mind  moves  round  a  point  like  the  fretted  animal  round  the 
post  to  which  it  is  chained,  or  like  the  moth  fluttering  about 
the  light  which  is  to  consume  it. 

The  will,  whether  it  exists  in  the  shape  of  desire  or  positive 
purpose,  has,  it  thus  appears,  an  influence,  direct  and  indirect, 
upon  the  train  of  thought  and  feeling.  But  the  will,  being  re- 
sponsible for  its  acts,  is  responsible  for  all  the  effects  which  these 
acts  produce.  If  these  are  evil,  the  mind  cannot  escape  from 
the  blame,  on  the  ground  that  they  are  not  immediately  volun- 
tary. There  may  be  acts  in  the  highest  degree  sinful,  though 
not  proceeding  immediately  from  the  will.  As  proceeding 
really,  though  not  directly,  from  the  will,  it  must  be  held  as 
accountable  for  them.  The  depraved  will  has  undoubtedly  to 
answer  for  all  the  brood  which  it  may  hatch.  Those  who  sow 
dragon's  teeth  must  be  prepared  to  take  the  blame  of  all  the 
deeds  which  the  armed  men  who  spring  up  may  perform.  A 
rebellious  will  may  thus  be  responsible  for  errors  which  are  in 
themselves  merely  intellectual,  just  as  the  drunkard  is  held 
accountable  in  every  court  of  law  for  the  acts  which  he  commits 
during  intoxication.  A  perverted  will  may  be  chargeable  with 
the  full  blame  of  a  state  of  disordered  feeling  produced  by  it, 
just  as  the  opium-eater  has  to  take  the  guilt  of  those  frightful 
images  which  his  cherished  habit  has  necessarily  called  up. 

Dr.  Chalmers  has  shown  how  mere  emotions,  through  their 
connexion  more  or  less  remote  with  the  will,  may  become  morally 
good  and  morally  evil.  "  It  is  this  which  imparts  virtuousness 
to  emotion,  even  though  there  be  nothing  virtuous  which  is  not 
voluntary.  It  is  true  that,  once  the  idea  of  an  object  is  in  the 
mind,  its  counterpart  emotion  may,  by  an  organic  or  pathologi- 


346  INFLUENCE  OF  A  DEPKAVED  WILL  ' 

cal  law,  have  come  unbidden  into  the  heart.  The  emotion  may 
have  come  unbidden,  bat  the  idea  may  not  have  come  unbidden. 
By  an  act  of  the  will  it  may,  in  the  way  now  explained,  have 
been  summoned,  at  the  first,  into  the  mind's  presence,  and  at 
all  events  it  is  by  a  continuous  act  of  the  will  that  it  is  detained 
and  dwelt  upon."  "  It  cannot  bid  compassion  into  the  bosom 
apart  from  the  object  which  awakens  it ;  but  it  can  bid  a  per- 
sonal entry  into  the  house  of  mourning,  and  then  the  compas- 
sion will  flow  apace ;  or  it  can  bid  a  mental  conception  of  the 
bereaved  and  afflicted  family  there,  and  then  the  sensibility 
will  equally  rise  whether  a  suffering  be  seen  or  a  suffering  be 
thought  of.  In  like  manner,  it  cannot  bid  into  the  breast  the 
naked  and  unaccompanied  feeling  of  gratitude,  but  it  can  call 
to  recollection,  and  keep  in  recollection,  the  kindness  which 
prompts  it,  and  the  emotion  follows  in  faithful  attendance  on  its 
counterpart  object.  It  is  thus  that  we  can  will  the  right  emo- 
tions into  being,  not  immediately,  but  mediately — as  the  love  of 
God,  by  thinking  on  God — a  sentiment  of  friendship,  by  dwelling 
in  contemplation  on  the  congenial  qualities  of  our  friend — the 
admiration  of  moral  excellence,  by  means  of  a  serious  and  stead- 
fast attention  to  it.  It  is  thus,  too,  that  we  bid  away  the  wrong 
emotions,  not  separately  and  in  disjunction  from  the  objects,  for 
the  pathological  law  which  unites  objects  with  emotions  [is  it  not 
rather  conceptions  with  emotions  ?]  we  cannot  break  asunder, 
but  we  rid  our  heart  of  the  emotions  by  ridding  our  mind  of 
their  exciting  and  originating  thoughts — of  anger,  for  instance, 
by  forgetting  the  injury  ;  or  of  a  licentious  imagination,  by  dis- 
missing from  our  fancy  the  licentious  image,  or  turning  our  sight 
and  our  eves  from  viewing  vanity."* 

But  the  will  exercises  an  indirect  influence,  not  only  upon  the 
emotions,  but  also  upon  the  judgment.  It  is  proverbial,  indeed, 
that  the  wishes  of  the  heart  exercise  a  most  powerful  influence 
upon  the  common  judgments  of  the  mind.  It  has  not  been  so 
frequently  observed,  that  the  will  may  sway  in  a  prejudicial 
manner  the  moral  judgments.  This  phenomenon  is  to  be 
explained  in  much  the  same  way  as  those  to  which  we  have 
referred. 

Here  we  must  take  along  with  us  some  of  the  observations 
made  in  the  last  section  upon  the  working  of  the  moral  faculty. 

*  Moral  Philosophy,  chap.  v. 


UPON  THE  MOKAL  JUDGMENTS.  347 

The  conscience,  it  must  be  remembered,  is  a  reflex  faculty,  pro- 
nouncing its  decision  upon  the  case  as  submitted  to  it.  In  order 
to  observe  how  the  will  is  fitted  to  sway  the  decisions  of  the 
conscience,  let  us  suppose  that  it  is  bent  upon  a  particular  course 
of  conduct,  and  suggests  its  performance  to  the  mind.  Cassar 
has  come  to  the  river  Rubicon,  and  is  bent  upon  reaching  Rome. 
He  knows  that  the  crossing  of  this  stream  is  a  violation  of  the 
laws  of  his  country ;  but  when  the  thought  of  this  occurs  to  him, 
he  speedily  banishes  it.  Other  thoughts  meanwhile  rise  up 
before  his  mind,  and  are  cherished — the  evil  which  Pompey  and 
his  faction  are  doing  in  Rome,  and  the  benefit  which  his  country 
might  derive  from  their  expulsion.  We  believe  Csesar,  in  the 
act,  to  have  been  swayed  by  ambition,  and  not  a  perverted  moral 
sense  ;  yet  we  can  conceive  how,  in  the  way  now  indicated,  he 
may  have  succeeded  in  deceiving  the  moral  faculty,  and  justify- 
ing his  conduct  to  himself.  Or  let  us  suppose,  as  a  case  more 
in  point,  that  certain  of  the  conspirators  against  Caesar  are  bent 
upon  ridding  themselves  of  one  who  is  regarded  by  them  as 
having  robbed  his  country  of  its  liberties.  It  is  easy  to  see  how, 
by  dwelling  on  one  aspect  of  the  case,  under  the  influence  of 
desire,  the  deed,  as  a  whole,  might  come  to  be  regarded  as  in 
the  highest  degree  commendable.  The  desert  of  the  ambitious 
tyrant  will  be  seen  in  fearfully  dark  colours,  and  the  mind  will 
fondly  dwell  on  the  immediate  and  glorious  advantages  which 
are  to  arise  from  his  overthrow  ;  and  these  features  being  vividly 
presented  to  the  conscience,  while  the  other  aspects  of  the  deed 
are  carefully  concealed,  the  conscience  will  now  give  its  approval, 
and  the  parties  rush  to  the  commission  of  the  deed,  as  one  which 
they  are  imperatively  called  to  perform. 

Assuming,  then,  (for  the  proof  must  be  deferred  to  a  succeed- 
ing section,)  that  the  will  goes  wrong,  it  is  conceivable  that 

THREE    GENERAL    EFFECTS   OF   A    PREJUDICIAL    KIND    may    follow 

from  the  will  deceiving  the  conscience. 

(1.)  We  mistake,  in  regard  to  certain  actions,  calling  that 
which  is  good  evil,  and  that  which  is  evil  good.  The  will 
accomplishes  this,  by  presenting  the  evil  and  the  good  in  a  false 
light.  The  action  being  a  complex  one,  the  will  may  present  it 
only  under  one  aspect,  and  thus  draw  forth  a  false  judgment. 
A  good  act,  which  we  are  unwilling  to  perform,  comes  to  be  pre- 
sented as  leading  to  pain,  or  to  certain  prejudicial  consequences, 


348  INFLUENCE  OF  A  DEPRAVED  WILL 

and  the  conscience  is  led  to  give  its  disapproval  of  it.  An  evil 
act,  which  we  are  bent  upon  committing,  comes  to  be  seen  only 
as  leading  to  happiness,  and  the  conscience  is  kept  from  laying 
a  sentence  of  disapprobation  upon  it.  Doubts  may  arise  as  to 
the  accuracy  of  these  judgments,  upon  other  views  involuntarily 
suggesting  themselves  to  the  mind ;  but  the  will  contrives  to 
drive  them  away  with  all  available  speed. 

Thus  it  is,  that  sin  comes  to  be  adopted  as  morally  good. 
Hence  the  difficulty  of  getting  a  favourite  sin  condemned. 
Charge  it  at  any  one  point,  and  it  immediately  assumes  the 
name  of  some  virtue  to  which  it  bears  a  partial  resemblance.  Is 
the  man  forgetting  God,  and  the  duties  which  he  owes  to  him, 
that  he  may,  through  deep  anxiety,  and  a  contempt  of  present 
comforts,  amass  wealth,  and  purchase  earthly  possessions  ? — he 
calls  his  conduct  by  the  name  of  industry.  Is  he  selfishly  and 
systematically  employed  in  raising  himself  step  by  step  in  society, 
to  the  disregard  of  all  higher  claims  ? — he  professes  to  be  swayed 
by  an  innocent  regard  to  the  respect  of  his  fellow-men.  Is  he 
in  the  way  of  despising  the  poor,  of  fostering  a  spirit  of  revenge, 
and  avoiding  the  confession  of  sin  ? — his  conduct  passes  for 
spirit  and  magnanimity.  Is  he  addicted  to  rudeness,  to  quar- 
relsomeness, and  profanity  ? — he  claims  the  merit  due  to  inde- 
pendence of  thinking  and  acting.  Is  he  led  to  give  a  servile 
obeisance  to  the  prevailing  opinion,  or  conceal  his  sentiments  in 
the  presence  of  persons  of  rank  and  name  ? — he  shelters  his 
conduct  under  the  guise  of  modesty  and  civility  of  manners.  It 
is  in  this  way  that  we  account  for  the  perverted  moral  judg- 
ments of  mankind. 

(2.)  Men  form  too  favourable  an  estimate  of  their  own  cha- 
racter.    A  number  of  circumstances  contribute  to  this  end. 

First  of  all,  there  is  an  unwillingness  on  the  part  of  those  who 
have  committed  sin,  candidly  to  inspect  themselves.  Just  as  the 
impenitent  criminal  wTould  avoid  the  bar  of  the  judge  and  the 
examination  of  the  witnesses,  so  would  the  sinner  flee  from  the 
sifting  inspection  of  the  moral  law.  Just  as  the  murderer  would 
visit  any  spot  on  this  earth's  wide  surface  rather  than  that  at 
which  the  deed  was  committed,  and  recollect  any  scene  of  his 
past  life  more  willingly  than  the  blood  which  he  shed,  and  the 
shrieks  of  the  dying  victim ;  so  would  the  sinner  draw  back 
from  everything  that  might  remind  him  of  his  guilt.     Or,  if 


UPON  THE  MORAL  JUDGMENTS.  349 

constrained  to  admit  an  investigation,  he  will  yet  contrive,  like 
Kachel,  to  keep  one  spot  concealed,  and  that  the  one  in  which 
he  retains  the  idols  of  his  worship, — and  the  inquiry  terminates 
in  a  more  confirmed  deception. 

Hence  we  find  that  of  all  branches  of  knowledge,  the  know- 
ledge of  ourselves  and  of  our  sins  is  that  which  is  most  neglected. 
In  all  other  sciences,  knowledge  natters  our  vanity,  raises  us  in 
the  eyes  of  our  neighbours,  increases  our  influence  in  society  ;  but 
a  searching  inquiry  into  the  state  of  our  heart  wounds  our  pride, 
and  lowers  us  in  our  own  esteem.  Hence  it  is  that  we  meet  con- 
tinually with  persons  possessed  of  great  shrewdness  and  sagacity 
in  all  other  matters,  who  are  most  lamentably  ignorant  of  them- 
selves. Many  have  attained  an  extraordinary  knowledge  of  man- 
kind in  general,  and  can  discern  at  once  the  weak  points  of  every 
neighbour,  but  are  pitiably  blind  to  every  one  of  their  own  in- 
firmities ;  it  is  amusing  to  observe,  that  of  the  whole  circle  of 
their  acquaintanceship,  they  are  perhaps  the  only  persons  to 
whom  their  failings  are  unknown.  There  are  individuals,  skilled 
in  all  other  science,  utterly  ignorant  of  this  ;  capable  of  calcu- 
lating the  motions  of  the  heavenly  bodies,  and  yet  knowing 
nothing  of  the  movements  of  their  own  hearts — of  predicting  the 
eclipses  of  the  sun  and  planets,  but  unacquainted  with  the  dark 
spots  on  their  own  characters — of  decomposing  the  material  sub- 
stances around  them,  but  not  of  analyzing  the  motives  by  which 
they  are  swayed.  Many,  we  suspect,  pass  from  the  cradle  to  the 
grave  under  the  influence  of  divers  views,  feelings,  impulses,  and 
passions ;  but  without  once  stopping  to  inquire  what  is  the  rela- 
tion in  which  they  stand  to  God  and  his  law.  Kather  than 
confess  the  danger,  by  casting  out  their  sounding-lines  and  mea- 
suring the  depths,  they  permit  themselves  to  drift  along  they 
know  not  whither,  till  at  last  death,  like  the  cry  of  "  Breakers 
a-head \"  awakes  them  from  their  lethargy,  but  only  to  shew 
them  stranded  as  a  wreck  on  the  shores  of  eternity.  This  unwill- 
ingness on  the  part  of  the  human  heart  to  submit  to  examination 
— this  shrinking  from  inspection — this  trembling  and  shaking, 
and  studious  concealment — all  are  indicative  of  conscious  guilt. 
The  party  would  not  be  so  disinclined  to  look  into  his  accounts, 
were  he  not  afraid  to  discover  losses,  debt,  and  probable  bank- 
ruptcy. The  limb  would  not  so  shrink  were  there  not  disease 
preying  upon.  it. 


350  INFLUENCE  OF  A  DEPRAVED  WILL 

Yet  it  is  easy  to  see  how,  in  consequence  of  this  unwillingness 
to  look  at  the  sin,  it  may  readily  escape  detection.  "  The  heart 
is  deceitful  above  all  things,  and  desperately  wicked."  These  two 
characteristics  have  a  very  close  connexion.  On  the  one  hand, 
the  heart  is  so  deceitful  just  because  it  is  so  desperately  wicked. 
It  shews  its  wickedness  by  its  deceitfulness.  It  is  because  of  its 
darkness  that  it  is  so  fitted  for  concealment  and  seduction.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  deceitfulness  of  the  heart  tends  to  hide  its 
wickedness  from  the  view.  Unless  we  are  on  our  guard  against 
its  power  to  deceive  us,  we  shall  never  become  acquainted  with 
its  desperate  wickedness. 

But  there  is  something  more  than  a  mere  negative  ignorance 
produced  by  a  deceitful  heart.  Mankind  come  to  clothe  them- 
selves in  a  positive  way  with  qualities  which  they  do  not  possess. 

When  man  would  look  to  his  past  life,  the  heart  interposes, 
and  exhibits  everything  through  a  false  and  flattering  medium. 
Distance  in  space,  we  know,  gives  a  particular  hue  to  the  objects 
seen  ; — thus,  we  read  of  the  Blue  Mountains,  though  no  moun- 
tains are  in  reality  of  a  blue  colour.  Distance  in  time  may  have 
a  somewhat  similar  colouring  effect  on  the  objects  looked  at. 
By  the  natural  process  of  association  under  the  influence  of  desire, 
the  mind  recalls  most  readily  those  parts  of  our  past  life  which 
may  seem  creditable  to  our  talents  and  virtues,  and  consigns  all 
else  to  oblivion.  We  meditate  with  delight  on  our  generosity, 
real  or  imaginary,  our  patience  under  suffering,  our  courage  in 
the  hour  of  danger.  We  remember  how  we  outstript  others  in 
the  path  of  duty,  how  we  advanced  when  they  shrank,  and  stood 
when  they  fell.  We  fondly  dwell  on  the  success  which  has 
attended  our  schemes,  on  the  compliments  which  have  been  paid 
us,  on  the  honours  heaped  on  us  ;  and  when  we  think  of  our  want 
of  success,  it  is  to  attribute  the  whole  to  the  folly  of  friends,  or 
the  malice  of  enemies.  In  the  meantime,  a  thousand  evil  actions 
and  evil  feelings  are  willingly  forgotten.  We  never  forget  that 
we  gave  a  certain  sum  in  charity,  but  we  forget  that  it  was  only 
the  tenth  or  the  hundredth  part  of  what  we  expended  on  folly. 
The  memory,  like  a  skilful  flatterer,  thus  brings  before  us  those 
deeds  which  we  delight  to  hear  of,  and  leaves  all  others  unno- 
ticed; or  should  these  others  at  times  force  themselves  upon  the 
attention,  the  heart  has  a  variety  of  excuses  to  urge.  The  act  was 
committed  in  our  younger  years,  and  it  is  suggested  that  it  was 


-UPON  THE  MORAL  JUDGMENTS.  351 

merely  a  deed  of  youthful  folly,  implying  no  great  criminality ; 
or  palliating  circumstances  are  discovered  to  lessen  or  excuse  its 
guilt.  Has  the  person  been  indulging  evil  temper  or  violent 
passion  ? — he  at  length  brings  himself  to  believe  that  this  was 
highly  proper,  when,  as  he  now  perceives,  so  much  malice  was 
intended.  His  cunning  he  will  dignify  with  the  name  of  wisdom, 
selfishness  is  called  prudence,  and  his  profligacy,  the  becoming 
enjoyment  of  the  pleasures  of  this  world. 

The  will  exercises  an  equally  prejudicial  influence  when  men 
look  to  their  'present  character.  The  view  which  we  get  of  an 
object  depends  on  the  position  which  we  take :  thus  every  man 
sees  his  own  rainbow  and  his  own  aurora  borealis.  From  the 
position  at  which  he  views  himself,  man  gets  a  delusive  view  of 
his  own  character.  He  imagines  that  he  possesses  good  qualities, 
which,  as  all  neutral  persons  know,  do  not  belong  to  him  ;  and  is 
unconscious  of  infirmities  of  which  all  his  friends  are  cognizant. 
He  never  doubts  of  his  own  fortitude  and  firmness,  at  the  very 
time  that  all  others  fear  that  he  will  shrink  in  the  hour  of  trial. 
He  imagines  that  he  is  generous  when  others  know  that  he  is 
selfish.  It  would  be  laughable,  were  it  not  rather  pitiable,  to 
see  him  so  self-deluded,  while  others  are  so  fully  aware  of  his 
weaknesses. 

The  heart  yet  further  deceives  us  when  we  would  look  to  our 
future  intentions.  It  seduces  us  in  this  way,  when  it  fails  in 
every  other.  Even  when  mankind  have  been  constrained  to 
discover  that  they  have  acted  improperly  in  time  past,  they 
cherish  the  belief  that  they  may  wipe  out  the  stain  by  their 
future  exertions.  In  particular,  they  are  apt  to  imagine,  that 
they  can  perform  any  deed  on  their  forming  a  momentary 
resolution  to  do  so.  The  young  man  fancies  that  he  can  keep 
his  character  pure  in  the  midst  of  abounding  corruption,  and 
attain  to  any  excellence  which  for  the  time  he  may  resolve  to 
reach.  He  wonders  to  see  individuals  farther  advanced  in  life 
so  sunk  in  criminality.  He  thinks  not  that  in  his  future  life  he 
may  descend,  step  by  step,  the  same  dark  path  of  vice,  till  he 
becomes  the  subject  of  similar  wonder.  And  yet  other  men  will 
not  profit  by  his  fall,  any  more  than  he  profited  by  that  of  others  ; 
for  every  one  imagines  that  he  has  some  peculiar  charm  by  which 
he  can  resist  all  the  enchantments  of  vice,  and  come  forth  unhurt 
from  its  dangerous  presence. 


352  INFLUENCE  OF  A  DEPRAVED  WILL 

Nothing  else  is  so  deceitful  as  a  perverted  will.  It  is  more 
cunning  than  the  most  expert  thief,  craftier  than  the  deepest 
politician,  more  artful  than  the  wiliest  hypocrite,  more  plausible 
than  the  most  skilful  flatterer.  If  we  must  sometimes  be  on 
our  guard  against  the  treachery  of  our  fellow-men,  it  behoves 
us  to  exercise  a  still  more  watchful  jealousy  over  ourselves. 
Every  wise  man  is  sensitive  as  to  the  first  approaches  of  that 
flattery  which  interested  parties  give  him,  but  we  have  all 
greater  cause  to  dread  the  flattery  which  the  deceitful  heart  is 
sending  up  as  incense.  Others,  in  their  attempts  to  deceive  us, 
can  have  access  to  us  only  at  certain  times,  and  in  particular 
ways ;  but  the  heart  presents  its  delusive  suggestions  at  all  times, 
and  by  an  infinite  variety  of  channels.  Much  as  there  is  among 
us  of  deception,  of  the  deception  of  one  man  by  his  neighbour, 
there  is  much  more  of  self-deception.  Of  all  flattery,  self-flattery 
is  the  most  common. 

And  what  is  the  general  result  of  all  this  willing  self-deceit  ? 
The  man  becomes  full  of  himself,  of  his  past  conduct,  his  present 
character,  and  his  purposes  for  the  future.  He  constructs  for 
himself  a  fictitious  character  of  extraordinary  excellence,  which 
he  is  bound  to  admire.  "  Surely  every  man  walketh  in  a  vain 
.show."  A  state  of  things  is  produced,  as  delusive  as  the  scenes 
of  a  novel,  as  deceptive  as  the  exhibitions  of  the  stage ;  and  he 
moves  in  the  midst  of  them  as  a  hero.  The  glare  of  lamps  in  a 
theatre,  the  curtains  raised  and  dropped  at  the  appropriate  time, 
the  perspective,  the  dresses,  the  personifications  in  tone  and 
manner,  do  not  so  deceive  the  spectator,  and  call  up  feelings  so 
unsuited  to  the  reality,  as  the  stage  pictures  and  actings  which 
the  fancy  creates  at  the  bidding  of  the  will — and  all  that  men 
may  be  able  to  personate  a  character  which  they  do  not  possess, 
and  to  admire  themselves  in  that  character.  Nor  can  there  be  a 
greater  contrast  between  the  possibly  mean,  mercenary,  villanous 
actor  and  the  noble  character  personified  by  him,  between  the 
actress  of  doubtful  reputation  and  the  chastity  which  she  repre- 
sents, than  there  is  between  the  real  man  with  his  sins  and  the 
magnanimous  hero  pictured  in  his  imagination.  The  mind  is 
deceived  by  the  one  exhibition  as  by  the  other  ;  and  as  the  actor 
receives  plaudits  for  the  generosity  of  the  sentiments  uttered  by 
him,  and  the  actress  excites  sympathy  from  the  sufferings  which 
she  is  supposed  to  undergo,  so  do  mankind  claim  the  admiration 


UPON  THE  MORAL  JUDGMENTS.  353 

due  to  the  fictitious  character  which  they  have  assumed. 
Catherine  of  Bussia,  when  she  travelled  through  her  waste 
dominions,  caused  painted  villages  to  be  raised  along  her  route, 
that  she  might  he  enabled  to  give  way  to  the  imagination  that 
her  country  was  flourishing  and  populous.  It  is  in  such  a  delu- 
sion that  mankind  in  general  pass  through  life,  raising  up 
around  them,  by  the  power  of  their  own  imaginations,  a  host  of 
supposed  good  qualities,  in  the  midst  of  which  they  walk,  as 
the  statues  of  the  gods  walk  in  the  processions,  listening  to  a 
constant  hymn  in  their  own  praise. 

The  hypocrite  is  commonly  supposed  to  be  the  most  profound 
of  all  characters.  But  there  is  a  deeper  and  more  dangerous 
deceit.  There  are  persons  who  come  to  act  the  hypocrite  to 
themselves.  He  who  has  been  deluded  by  his  neighbour  for 
years  is  not  more  astonished  when  his  eyes  are  opened,  than 
are  the  persons  now  referred  to,  when  their  own  character  stands 
fully  revealed  to  them. 

(3.)  The  mind  becomes  completely  perverted  and  disordered, 
We  hold,  that  a  mind  which  had  submitted  itself  in  every 
respect  to  the  law  of  God  could  not  be  led  to  pronounce  a 
perverted  judgment ;  but  when  the  will  has  set  itself  in  rebel- 
lion against  its  law,  that  is,  against  God,  it  is  conceivable  that 
sin  may  soon  spread  itself  through  the  whole  soul.  This  is  one 
of  the  most  fearful  of  all  the  tendencies  of  sin — its  tendency  to 
propagate  itself,  to  "  yield  seed  after  its  kind."  The  weed 
getting  into  a  garden  or  field  does  not  so  speedily  or  certainly, 
by  roots  and  winged  seeds,  spread  over  the  whole  space,  as  sin 
entering  the  mind  spreads  itself  through  all  the  faculties  and 
feelings.  If  we  do  not  mistake,  it  is  the  most  fearful  element 
in  what  divines  call  spiritual  death,  being  a  blindness  and  per- 
version of  mind  produced  by  indulgence  in  sin.  The  very  mind 
and  conscience  become  defiled.  We  can  conceive  a  mind  so 
utterly  perverted  by  an  habitual  deception  practised  upon  itself, 
that  at  length  it  can  scarcely  tell  what  is  right  from  what  is 
wrong,  or  find  out  clearly  the  path  of  duty  even  when  it  has  a 
passing  desire  to  discover  it.  We  know  no  condition  more 
pitiable  than  that  of  the  man  who  has  become  thus  bewildered 
through  the  original  wanderings  of  a  wayward  inclination,  and 
now  knows  not  how  to  return  to  the  path  of  duty  ;  for  he  has 
tracked  so  many  byways,  all  leading  from  the  right  path,  that 

z 


354  JUDGMENT  PRONOUNCED  BY  THE  CONSCIENCE 

he  has  a  difficulty,  at  every  step,  of  knowing  the  path  which  he 
should  take. 


SECT.  III. — JUDGMENT  PRONOUNCED  BY  THE  CONSCIENCE  UPON 
THE  CHARACTER  OF  MAN. 

Much  of  what  we  have  advanced  in  last  section  is  hypothe- 
tical. On  the  supposition  that  the  heart  is  wicked,  we  have 
shown  how  it  may  be  deceitful.  We  are  now  to  enter  upon  the 
proof  of  its  wickedness. 

We  may  come  to  discover  the  moral  character  of  man  in  two 
ways — first,  by  bringing  the  conscience  to  judge  of  him  ;  and, 
secondly,  taking  with  us  proper  ideas  of  what  moral  good  is,  we 
may  inquire  if  he  possesses  it.  The  first  is  the  method  followed 
in  this  section.  We  are  to  arraign  man  at  the  bar  of  his  own 
conscience. 

(1.)  It  will  not  be  difficult  to  show  that  the  conscience  con- 
demns certain  actions  committed  by  us.  Let  the  purest  man  on 
earth  pause,  and  make  his  past  conduct  pass  under  the  cogniz- 
ance of  his  conscience,  the  conscience  will  at  once  condemn 
particular  portions  of  it.  In  short,  the  conscience  announces  to 
every  man  that  he  has  sinned. 

Now,  there  is  much  more  implied  in  this  decision  than  those 
are  aware  of  who  have  not  reflected  on  the  subject.  The 
conscience  has,  in  the  name  of  God,  pronounced  its  sentence ; 
and  the  question  occurs,  How  is  this  sentence  to  be  removed  ? 
Conscience  declares  to  every  individual  that  he  has  sinned,  but 
it  points  out  no  way  by  which  the  sin  may  be  forgiven.  It  has 
solemnly  pronounced  its  sentence  ;  but  does  it  ever  lift  off  the 
sentence  ?  It  condemns  at  this  present  time  the  sin  which  we 
committed  yesterday ;  but  will  it  not  also  condemn  the  same 
deed,  when  submitted  to  it  ten  or  fifty  years  hence  ?  Is  there 
any  lapse  of  time,  any  change  of  circumstances,  which  will 
induce  the  conscience  to  revoke  its  own  judgments  ? 

Upon  genuine  repentance,  accompanied  with  reparation,  is 
the  answer  which  some  will  be  inclined  to  give.  Every  one 
acquainted  with  the  elements  of  Christian  divinity  knows  that 
this  view  cannot  stand  investigation.  We  enter  not  at  present 
into  the  question,  as  to  whether  repentance  be  in  the  native 
power  of  a  being  who  has  once  fallen  into  sin.     That  remorse 


UPON  THE  CHARACTER  OF  MAN.  355 

is  available  to  him,  we  doubt  not ;  but  remorse,  instead  of  paci- 
fying the  mind,  only  exasperates  it.  But  we  insist  upon  a  more 
positive  ground.  Kepentance,  in  many  cases,  can  make  no 
possible  reparation  for  the  injury  which  has  been  inflicted.  The 
murderer's  repentance,  for  instance,  cannot  bring  back  the 
murdered  man  from  the  judgment-seat  of  God  to  which  he  has 
been  hurried,  nor  dry  up  the  tears  of  the  widow  and  orphans 
that  he  left  behind.  Repentance,  in  many  cases,  cannot  make 
reparation  to  the  injured  parties,  and  in  no  case  can  it  make 
reparation  to  the  law  of  God.  We  cannot  conceive  that  the 
Governor  of  the  universe  should  proclaim  throughout  the  world 
which  be  has  created,  that  his  intelligent  creatures  may  break 
his  law,  and  inflict  injury  as  they  please,  and  then  that  they  will 
be  forgiven  on  the  profession  of  repentance.  Does  it  not  seem, 
as  if  the  conscience  would  condemn  such  a  mode  of  governing 
the  universe  if  presented  to  it  ?  We  think  it  evident,  at  least, 
that  the  conscience  gives  no  intimation  that  it  will  withdraw  its 
sentence,  upon  repentance  following  the  guilty  deed.  All  that 
it  declares  is,  that  penitence  is  a  becoming  act  on  the  part  of 
the  transgressor.  It  would  visit  the  impenitent  with  a  double 
sentence — first  upon  the  primary  sin,  and  then  upon  his  present 
hardness  of  heart,  and  continued  spirit  of  rebellion.  While 
repentance,  when  genuine,  may  be  our  present  duty,  it  does  not 
appear  as  if  it  could  make  any  atonement  for  past  transgression  ; 
or  make  the  conscience  do  anything  more  than  declare  that  this 
penitent  frame  of  mind  is  not  in  itself  sinful,  and  that  he  who 
cherishes  it  is  better  than  the  individual  who  first  commits  the 
sin,  and.  then  doubles  it  by  forgetting  it  or  glorying  in  it. 

We  point,  then,  to  the  adverse  sentence  of  the  conscience,  and 
ask  for  a  statement  of  the  circumstances  in  which  it  can  be  led 
to  withdraw  the  sentence  which  it  has  pronounced.  We  have 
never  seen  such  a  statement  clearly  and  distinctly  drawn  out ; 
and  until  that  is  done,  we  must  continue  to  believe  that  the 
conscience,  acting  in  the  name  of  God,  continues  to  leave  its 
awful  sentence  upon  lis,  without  giving  the  least  indication  of 
an  escape.  And  all  this  seems  to  be  implied  in  the  admission, 
that  we  have  committed  so  much  as  one  action  condemned  by 
the  conscience.  But  there  is  a  farther  and  a  more  difficult  and 
delicate  inquiry  to  be  made — in  regard  to  the  extent  of  human 
sinfulness  as  declared  by  the  moral  faculty. 


356      JUDGMENT  PKONOUNCED  BY  THE  CONSCIENCE 

(2.)  We  now  inquire  whether  the  conscience  approves  of  any 
one  state  of  the  mind  tvhen  the  same  is  truly  represented?  In 
making  this  inquiry,  it  will  be  needful  to  keep  in  view  some  of 
the  laws  of  the  operations  of  conscience  noticed  in  a  preceding 
section,  and  also  the  influence  which  the  will  exercises  upon  the 
representation  made  to  the  moral  faculty  of  any  given  action. 
We  must  remember  that  the  conscience  pronounces  its  verdict 
of  approval  or  disapproval,  not  upon  the  outward  act,  but  upon 
the  inward  state  of  the  agent,  and  that  it  judges  of  this  state 
according  to  the  representation  given  to  it.  Pains  must  be 
taken,  then,  in  submitting  any  action  to  the  decision  of  the 
conscience,  to  submit  not  a  mere  bodily  act  but  a  mental  state  of 
the  agent,  and  to  submit  the  actual  mental  state.  If  the  real 
state  of  the  agent's  soul  is  not  laid  before  the  conscience,  it  may 
give  far  too  favourable  a  decision.  The  difficulty  of  this  whole 
investigation  lies  in  determining  the  precise  condition  of  the 
soul  at  any  given  time.  In  by  far  the  greater  number  of  our 
actions  possessed  of  moral  characteristics,  the  motives,  direct 
and  indirect,  immediate  and  ultimate,  are  very  numerous  ;  and 
when  there  have  been  so  many  determining  feelings,  it  is  ex- 
tremely difficult  to  discover  the  predominating  one  ;  not  unfre- 
quently  it  contrives  to  lie  altogether  concealed  in  the  complicated 
folds  of  the  human  breast. 

But  here,  we  shall  suppose,  is  an  individual  resolved  to  ascer- 
tain, in  the  light  of  his  conscience,  his  precise  moral  state,  being 
aware  meanwhile  of  the  deceitfulness  of  his  heart.  This  man 
will  soon  find,  that  the  more  closely  he  investigates  his  heart  and 
conduct,  it  is  the  more  difficult  to  arrive  at  felt  certainty.  The 
difficulty  which  he  experiences  arises,  not  so  much  from  a  want 
of  clearness  in  the  decisions  of  the  conscience  when  the  case  is 
stated,  as  in  determining  what  is  the  case — that  is,  the  precise 
motive  by  which  he  is  swayed,  and  the  actual  state  of  his  mind  at 
any  given  instant.  Were  he  quite  sure  that  he  had  been  swayed 
by  pure  and  benevolent  motives  at  the  time  referred  to,  he  knows 
what  the  decision  of  the  moral  faculty  would  be  ;  but  the  deeper 
the  investigation,  and  the  greater  the  spirit  of  candour  by  which 
he  is  actuated,  it  is  seen  to  be  the  more  difficult  to  determine  the 
exact  influence  under  which  he  acted.  This  inquirer,  in  very 
proportion  to  his  honesty,  is  the  more  puzzled  and  distressed ; 
and  he  may  be  tempted  at  last,  as  he  feels  himself  beset  by 


UPON  THE  CHARACTER  OF  MAN.  357 

thickening  difficulties,  to  take  one  or  other  of  two  courses — 
either  to  cease  from  the  inquiry  altogether,  and  to  flatter  himself 
with  the  thought,  that  he  is  often  or  commonly  a  virtuous  agent ; 
or  to  abandon  himself  to  doubt,  distraction,  and  terror,  and  as 
he  feels  the  painfulness  of  these  feelings,  to  betake  himself  to 
superstition,  and  every  kind  of  bodily  exercise  that  may  be  fitted 
to  deaden  or  delude  the  moral  sense.  One  or  other  of  the  results 
now  indicated  has  commonly  been  the  issue — an  uninquiring 
self- satisfaction,  or  an  uneasy  self-suspicion,  which  drives  the 
individual  to  the  readiest  refuge  that  may  present  itself,  and  in 
which  he  may,  by  certain  acts  supposed  to  be  pleasing  to  God, 
allay  the  reproaches  by  which  he  is  troubled  Such  is  the  issue 
in  which  conscience  lands  us — it  drives  us  to  thoughtlessness, 
or  it  goads  us  to  madness.  We  see  it  strikingly  exhibited  in 
the  case  of  those  whose  crimes  are  peculiarly  aggravated — as  in 
that  of  the  guilty  spendthrift,  who  has  brought  multitudes  to 
ruin — or  in  that  of  the  murderer,  with  the  pangs  of  his  dying 
victims  ever  rising  up  freshly  before  his  mind ;  such  persons 
either  contrive  to  give  themselves  up  to  utter  unconcern,  or,  in 
restless  and  feverish  discontent,  they  pursue  every  supersti- 
tious ceremony  which  may  hold  cut  the  hope  of  appeasing  an 
offended  Grod. 

But  we  suppose  that  there  is  an  individual  sufficiently  earnest 
to  resist  all  the  allurements  which  would  turn  him  aside,  and 
sufficiently  enlightened  to  discover  the  inefficacy  of  super- 
stitious observances ;  to  what  result  would  he  be  conducted  ? 
He  would  settle  down,  we  apprehend,  in  a  most  painful  uncer- 
tainty, quite  conscious  that  sin  had  been  committed,  and  yet 
ignorant  of  any  means  by  which  sin  can  be  forgiven,  and  scarcely 
knowing  whether  he  has  ever  so  much  as  done  one  virtuous  act. 

It  seems  to  be  difficult  or  impossible,  then,  by  a  simple  direct 
inspection  of  the  state  of  mind  at  any  given  time,  to  deter- 
mine whether  it  is  truly  virtuous.  But  let  us  inquire,  whether 
there  may  not  be  certain  general  principles  which  guide  us  out 
of  our  uncertainty,  and  land  us  in  clear  and  distinct,  though  it 
may  be  very  humbling,  views  of  ourselves. 

And,  first,  it  is  a  general  principle  that,  in  judging  of  a  re- 
sponsible agent  at  any  given  time,  we  ought  to  take  into  view 
the  ivhole  state  of  his  mind.  We  ought  not  to  single  out  a  par- 
ticular part,  or  view  it  under  an  exclusive  aspect.     It  is  here,  as 


358       JUDGMENT  PRONOUNCED  BY  THE  CONSCIENCE   • 

we  have  seen,  that  there  is  room  for  partiality  and  endless  delu- 
sion. The  conscience,  as  a  divinely  appointed  arbiter,  judges 
according  to  truth,  and  judges  not  the  abstract  act,  but  the 
agent  in  the  act;  and  if  it  judges  correctly  of  the  agent,  it 
must  take  into  view  his  whole  moral  state  and  motive. 

As  a  second  general  principle,  it  must  be  taken  into  account, 
that  the  mental  state  of  the  agent  cannot  he  truly  good,  provided 
he  is  in  the  meantime  neglecting  a  known  and  manifest  duty. 
It  will  not  be  difficult  to  establish  this  principle,  which  is  a 
necessary  consequent  of  the  first ;  and  when  admitted,  the  two 
include  all  men  under  sin. 

Take  as  an  illustration,  a  boy  arrived  at  the  age  of  responsi- 
bility, running  away  from  his  parents,  without  provocation  of 
any  kind.  Very  possibly,  in  the  midst  of  the  companions  whom 
he  meets  with,  he  may  be  cheerful,  kind,  and  obliging.  Present 
this  disinterested  kindness  to  the  moral  faculty,  and  it  will 
approve  it  as  something  becoming ;  and  if  nothing  else  is  ob- 
served, it  may  seem  as  if  he  merited  our  warmest  approbation. 
But  present  the  whole  complex  moral  state  of  the  boy  to  the 
conscience,  and  the  judgment  will  be  instantly  reversed.  As 
long  as  this  child  is  living  in  neglect  of  a  bounden  duty,  the 
moral  sense  refuses  to  give  a  single  mark  of  approval ;  all  his 
kindness  will  not  draw  a  single  smile  of  complacency  from  the 
rightly  constituted  mind,  till  he  return  to  his  father's  house,  and 
to  his  proper  allegiance. 

Analogous  instances  will  present  themselves  to  the  reflecting 
mind.  A  person,  let  us  suppose,  has  unjustly  got  possession  of 
a  neighbour's  property.  It  is  conceivable,  that,  having  done  so, 
he  may  be  benevolent  in  the  use  which  he  makes  of  his  wealth ; 
his  hospitality  may  be  the  theme  of  admiration  throughout  the 
whole  neighbourhood,  and  the  praise  of  his  charity  may  be  in 
the  mouths  of  hundreds  of  the  destitute.  Now,  if  this  indi- 
vidual's original  dishonesty  is  not  established  on  sufficient  evi- 
dence, we  may,  in  the  judgment  of  charity,  give  him  credit  for 
generosity ;  but  when  the  whole  man  is  brought  under  our 
notice,  the  mind  can  give  one,  and  but  one  judgment,  and  that 
is  to  condemn  him,  even  when  he  is  at  the  head  of  his  own 
hospitable  board,  and  scattering  his  munificence  all  around  him. 

Or  take  the  case  of  a  Brazilian  sugar-planter  fitting  out  a 
slave-ship,  with  instructions  to  the  crew  to  proceed  to  the  coast 


UPON  THE  CHARACTER  OF  MAN.  359 

of  Africa,  there  to  seize  on  a  company  of  unoffending  negroes, 
and  bring  them  as  slaves  to  his  plantation.  He  makes  it  part  of 
his  instructions,  that  the  captives  shall  be  treated  with  great 
lenity  on  the  voyage  ;  and  upon  their  landing,  he  does  every- 
thing which  kindness  and  consideration  can  prompt,  to  promote 
their  comfort.  Now,  present  the  one  side  of  this  man's  conduct 
to  the  mind — let  a  stranger  be  taken  rapidly  over  the  plantation, 
let  him  see  the  food  provided  for  the  slaves,  the  comfortable 
dwellings  in  which  they  reside,  and  the  amusements  allowed 
them,  and  there  may  be  a  sentence  of  approval  pronounced  ;  but 
present  both  sides  of  the  picture,  and  the  sentence  will  assuredly 
be  one  of  severe  reprobation. 

A  husband  making  ample  temporal  provision  for  the  wife 
causelessly  forsaken,  the  libertine  lavishing  kindness  on  the 
person  whom  he  has  seduced,  and  with  whom  he  is  living  in  a 
state  of  sin — these  are  cases  in  point,  as  showing  how  the  con- 
science may  approve  of  a  moral  agent  on  his  conduct  being 
represented  only  under  one  aspect,  and  yet  disapprove  of  it 
when  brought  fully  under  review  ;  and  showing,  too,  how  the 
moral  faculty  cannot  approve  of  an  agent,  even  when  doing  an 
act  good  in  itself,  provided  he  is  in  a  bad  moral  state,  and  living 
in  the  meanwhile  in  neglect  of  a  clear  and  bounden  duty. 

History  presents  many  examples  of  such  a  mixture  of  motives. 
Lilienhorm  had  been  raised  from  obscurity  and  wretchedness 
by  Griistavus,  king  of  Sweden,  promoted  to  the  rank  of  com- 
mandant of  the  guard,  and  had  the  complete  confidence  of  his 
sovereign.  But  when  a  conspiracy  was  formed  against  his 
master,  he  joined  it,  instigated  by  the  hope  held  out  to  him  of 
commanding  the  national  guard,  and  holding  in  his  hand  the 
destinies  of  the  kingdom.  Meanwhile  he  endeavoured,  by  a 
kind  of  compromise,  to  keep  his  allegiance  to  the  king  his  bene- 
fector.  He  wrote  him  an  anonymous  letter,  informing  him  of 
an  unsuccessful  attempt  that  had  been  made  to  take  his  life 
some  time  before,  describing  the  plan  which  the  conspirators 
had  now  formed,  and  warning  him  against  going  to  a  particular 
ball,  where  the  assassination  was  to  be  committed.  In  this  way 
he  sought  to  satisfy  his  conscience,  when  it  threw  out  doubts  as 
to  the  propriety  of  the  course  which  he  was  pursuing.  He  spent 
the  evening  on  which  the  conspiracy  was  to  take  effect  in  the 
king's  apartment,  saw  him  read  the  anonvmous  letter  sent  him, 


360  JUDGMENT  PRONOUNCED  BY  THE  CONSCIENCE 

and  upon  the  generous  and  headstrong  king's  despising  the 
warning,  followed  him  to  the  ball,  and  was  present  when  he  was 
shot.  Now,  take  us  to  the  closet  of  this  man,  and  let  us  see 
him  writing  the  letter  which  was  fitted  to  save  his  sovereign — 
show  us  this,  and  no  more,  and  we  say,  How  becoming !  how 
generous  !  but  let  us  follow  him  through  the  whole  scenes,  and 
we  change  our  tone,  and  arraign  him  of  treachery ;  and  we  do 
so  at  the  very  instant  when  he  writes  the  letter,  and  seems  most 
magnanimous. 

By  the  help  of  these  principles,  we  are  enabled  to  bring  home 
the  sense  of  guilt  to  every  man's  conscience ;  not  only  the 
sense  of  individual  sins,  but  of  constant  and  abiding  sinfulness. 
When  there  is  not  a  sin  of  commission,  there  is  a  sin  of  omis- 
sion ;  when  there  is  not  the  sin  of  excess,  there  is  the  sin  of 
defect. 

In  particular,  we  hold  that  every  human  soul  is  chargeable 
with  ungodliness.  Other  sins  are  committed  by  individual  men, 
some  are  addicted  to  one  class  of  sins,  and  others  to  another ; 
but  this  offence  seems  to  be  universal.  All  are  not  malevolent 
or  selfish ;  all  are  not  intemperate  or  deceitful ;  all  are  not 
proud  and  ambitious  ;  but  all  seem  to  be  ungodly.  Other  sins 
may  be  only  occasional,  but  this  seems  to  be  perpetual  and 
abiding,  and  renders  all  men  guilty  at  all  times,  even  when  they 
are  cherishing  thoughts  and  feelings  which  in  themselves  are 
praiseworthy.  Does  any  man  stand  up  and  say,  I  was  in  a 
virtuous  state  at  such  and  such  a  time,  when  I  was  defending 
the  helpless,  and  relieving  the  destitute  ?  We  admit  at  once 
that  these  actions  in  themselves  are  hecoming,  as  becoming  as 
those  of  the  disobedient  §on  showing  kindness  to  his  companions; 
of  the  unjust  man  practising  hospitality ;  of  the  slaveholder 
supplying  his  slaves  with  excellent  food ;  of  the  husband  pro- 
viding handsomely  for  a  wife  abandoned ;  or  of  the  conspirator 
sending  a  notice  fitted  to  frustrate  the  conspiracy  to  which  he 
was  a  party.  If  we  could  judge  these  acts  apart  from  the  agent, 
we  should  unhesitatingly  approve  of  them.  Nay,  we  do  approve 
of  the  abstract  acts,  but  we  never  for  one  instant  approve  of  the 
agent.  Before  we  can  approve  of  the  disobedient  son,  but  kind 
companion,  he  must  return  to  his  obedience ;  of  the  unjust 
philanthropist,  he  must  restore  the  fruits  of  his  iniquity  ;  of  the 
liberal  slaveholder,  he  must  undo  his  deed ;  of  the  unfaithful 


UPON  THE  CHARACTER  OF  MAN.  361 

husband  in  his  kindness,  he  must  return  to  the  society  of  his 
wife  ;  of  the  notice  sent  by  the  conspirator,  he  must  first  dis- 
connect himself  entirely  and  openly  from  the  conspiracy  ; — and, 
in  like  manner,  before  we  can  approve  thoroughly  of  man,  even 
in  his  generosity,  we  must  find  him  returning  to  his  allegiance 
to  God,  making  confession  of  his  past  sin,  humbling  himself 
before  him  whom  he  has  offended,  and  acknowledging  that  the 
very  gifts  which  he  is  about  to  bestow  come  from  God,  the 
author  of  all  his  blessings. 

As  godliness  is  a  constant  duty,  so  ungodliness,  habitually 
cherished,  is  a  great  master-sin,  reaching  over  the  whole  man, 
contaminating  the  service  he  pays,  however  proper  it  may  be  in 
itself.  Does  it  not  look  as  if  an  ungodly  man  could  not  do  a 
truly  virtuous  act  ?  Does  it  not  look  as  if  man  must  first  be 
made  godly,  before  he  can  do  an  act  truly  good  ?  "  Either 
make  the  tree  good,  and  his  fruit  good ;  or  else  make  the  tree 
corrupt,  and  his  fruit  corrupt." 

SECT.  IV. — FARTHER  INQUIRY  INTO  THE  VIRTUOUSNESS,  AND  MORE 
PARTICULARLY  THE  GODLINESS,  OF  MAN'S  CHARACTER. 

It  is  extremely  difficult  for  us,  in  our  present  circumstances, 
and  with  our  present  prejudices,  to  form  an  impartial  estimate 
of  the  human  character.  Prejudices  intervene  to  obscure  the 
view,  both  when  we  examine  others  and  ourselves.  On  looking 
around,  we  find  ourselves  in  the  heart  of  a  crowd  of  persons  and 
events,  so  involved  one  with  another,  and  with  us,  that  we  can- 
not easily  form  an  enlarged  conception  of  them.  What  a  mass 
of  beings  spring  up  before  us,  when  we  would  survey  the  world  ! 
and  these  with  feelings,  with  habits,  and  dispositions  so  varied  ; 
some  mild,  others  passionate  ;  some  gifted  with  lofty  powers  of 
understanding,  others  incapable  of  rising  above  the  ordinary 
details  of  life  ;  some  who  seem  to  be  looking  forward  to  another 
world,  and  others  living  as  if  they  were  to  live  here  for  ever,  or 
as  if  their  souls  were  to  go  down  with  their  bodies  to  the  grave, 
and  be  buried  in  the  same  tomb.  We  are,  moreover,  personally 
connected  with  many  of  the  events  that  are  occurring  ;  some  we 
look  to  with  hope,  as  about  to  bring  us  friends  or  fortune ; 
others  with  fear,  as  threatening  to  plunge  us  into  the  depths  of 
adversity.     Then  there  are  a  thousand  ties  connecting  us  with 


362  INQUIRY  INTO  THE  VIRTUOUSNESS 

the  men  around  us  ;  to  this  one  we  are  joined  by  the  bond  of 
relationship  ;  to  this  other,  by  the  ties  of  business  ;  and  with  a 
third,  we  have  passed  many  a  pleasant  and  profitable  hour. 
Being  so  intimately  connected  with  all  around  us,  and  all  around 
us  being  so  involved,  we  are  constantly  liable,  in  our  judgments 
of  character,  to  be  warped  by  human  prepossessions,  or  at  least 
to  become  bewildered  and  confused. 

The  better  way  of  forming  a  true  estimate  of  the  moral  charac- 
ter of  man  is  to  examine  ourselves.  But  then  we  are  afraid  to 
inspect  ourselves,  lest  humbling  disclosures  should  be  made. 
And  when  we  have  the  courage  to  examine  our  hearts,  prejudice 
dims  the  eyes,  vanity  distorts  the  object  seen,  the  treacherous 
memory  brings  up  only  the  fair  and  flattering  side  of  the  pic- 
ture, and  the  deceived  judgment  denies  the  sinful  action,  explains 
away  the  motives,  or  excuses  the  deed  in  the  circumstances. 

It  appears,  then,  that  we  are  too  near  the  object  examined  to 
obtain  an  expanded  view,  and  too  personally  connected  with  it 
to  form  an  impartial  estimate.  We  are  in  the  condition  of  one 
surveying  a  bustling  scene  while  in  the  midst  of  it ;  of  a  soldier, 
for  example,  trying  to  form  a  conception  of  the  battle  while 
engaged  in  the  fight.  Those  who  would  obtain  a  correct  view 
of  the  scene  or  battle,  must  ascend  an  eminence  whence  they 
may  see  it  lying  before  and  below  them  : — and  is  it  not  possible 
to  reach  a  height  whence  we  may  survey  human  nature  far 
above  the  passions  and  narrow  interests  which  do  here  so  confine 
and  distract  us  ?  Let  us  in  imagination  ascend  to  such  an 
eminence, — higher  than  that  mount,  wrapt  in  clouds  and  thun- 
ders, from  which  Moses  received  the  law  revealed  to  men  who 
had  broken  it,  or  than  that  other  mount  whence  he  descried  the 
land  of  promise  smiling  with  fertility,  or  even  than  that  mount 
from  which  the  Tempter  shewed  the  Representative  of  man  the 
glory  of  the  kingdoms  of  this  world  ;  we  are  to  rise  above  these 
distracting  or  delusive  scenes  to  those  third  heavens  to  which  an 
Apostle  was  carried,  whether  in  the  body  or  out  of  the  body  he 
knew  not,  that  there  we  may  see  all  things  as  God  sees  them, 
when  he  looks  down  from  heaven  upon  the  children  of  men. 
As  wo  leave  the  earth  in  this  flight  of  faith,  we  are  gradually 
removed  from  the  sympathies,  the  prejudices  of  the  race,  one 
after  another  of  the  network  which  ties  us  to  the  earth  is  broken 
or  loosened,  till  at  length  we  are  altogether  disentangled  from 

7  O  W  O 


AND  GODLINESS  OF  MAN'S  CHARACTER.  363 

lower  interests,  and  we  find  that,  as  we  ascend,  our  view  widens 
with  the  wide  horizon  spreading  out  around  us ;  that  terrestrial 
objects  dwindle  into  greater  and  greater  insignificance — the 
property  once  coveted  so  earnestly  shrinking  till  it  is  scarcely 
discernible,  and  the  very  citadels  of  earth,  its  proud  palaces  and 
populous  cities,  and  these  isles  in  which  we  live,  with  their 
vaunted  trade  and  arts  and  commerce,  and  ships  which  visit 
every  shore  of  the  ocean,  diminishing  till  they  appear  "  a  very 
little  thing  ;"  and  that  as  we  draw  near  to  Him  who  dwelleth 
in  light,  the  brightest  earthly  glory  is  stript  of  its  lustre  and 
appears  dim,  just  as  every  other  object  appears  dark  after  we 
have  gazed  on  the  splendour  of  the  noon-day  sun.  Being 
dazzled  with  the  light,  we  turn  for  relief  to  the  earth  now  far 
beneath  us.  We  venture  to  affirm  that  from  this  point  of  view 
our  judgment  would  be  the  same  with  that  of  God — "  God 
looked  down  from  heaven  upon  the  children  of  men  to  see  if 
there  were  any  that  did  understand,  that  did  seek  God.  Every 
one  of  them  is  gone  back,  they  are  altogether  become  filthy ; 
there  is  none  that  doeth  good,  no,  not  one." 

From  such  a  point  of  view  we  shall  be  satisfied  that  all  men 
are  on  much  the  same  level.  We  divide  mankind  into  the 
virtuous  and  the  vicious,  the  good  and  the  bad.  And  it  is 
certain  that  there  are  differences  between  one  man  and  another, 
and  between  one  class  of  men  and  another,  in  respect  of  their 
moral  condition.  Still,  if  we  take  a  sufficiently  high  standard, 
we  shall  see  that,  though  there  are  differences,  there  are  far 
more  important  points  of  resemblance.  When  we  ascend  a  very 
high  mountain,  and  take  a  view  of  the  ground  lying  below  us, 
we  find  the  lower  hills,  which  may  have  appeared  of  considerable 
magnitude  when  looked  at  from  beneath,  becoming  more  and 
more  insignificant,  till  at  length  the  whole  landscape  of  little 
hills  and  valleys  stretches  out  before  us  as  a  level  plain ;  and 
did  we  but  look  upon  mankind  and  human  nature  from  the 
height  of  God's  law,  we  should  be  less  impressed  with  the  differ- 
ence between  this  man  and  that  man,  and  see  more  clearly 
how  much  they  are,  after  all,  on  the  same  level.  "  There  is  no 
difference,  for  all  have  sinned,  and  come  short  of  the  glory 
of  God." 

Man's  favourable  estimate  of  his  character  arises  from  his 
looking  at  himself  from  a  wrong  position — from  his  taking  a 


364  INQUIRY  INTO  THE  VIRTUOUSNESS 

low  and  imperfect  standard.  In  order  to  judge  correctly,  we 
are,  from  the  stand-point  readied,  to  take  the  law  of  God  as  the 
instrument  of  judgment.  Having  in  the  last  section  taken  a 
survey  of  man's  moral  nature,  as  the  same  can  be  gathered 
from  the  intimations  of  conscience, .  we  are  now  to  use  not  the 
faculty  that  judges  so  much  as  the  law  by  which,  it  judges; 
and  taking  with  us  proper  views  of  the  nature  of  virtue,  and  of 
the  qualities  that  constitute  it,  we  are  to  inquire  into  the 
character  and  extent  of  the  good  or  evil  qualities  which  man 
possesses. 

In  doin<]f  so,  it  is  needful  to  remember,  that  virtue  consists 
essentially  in  the  will  following  the  dictates  of  the  law  fixed  for 
its  regulation  ;  and  that  sin,  on  the  other  hand,  consists  in  the 
mind  refusing  to  follow  the  rule  prescribed  to  it.  Proceeding 
on  these  principles,  it  will  at  once  appear  that  the  morally  good 
does  not  consist  in  the  possession  of  feeling  or  affection.  Love 
is  not  the  only  element  in  the  good.  There  may  be  positive 
vice  in  misdirected  love.  The  circumstance  that  man  possesses 
affection  is  no  proof  of  the  purity  of  his  nature.  We  hold  it 
capable,  indeed,  of  being  demonstrated  by  the  strongest  evidence 
that  man  is  possessed  of  disinterested  affection.  There  are 
sympathies,  and  tendernesses,  constantly  shown  by  mankind 
towards  each  other.  If  there  be  a  person  who  has  never  received 
such  kindness  from  a  fellow-creature,  it  is  most  assuredly  be- 
cause, by  his.  rudeness  or  selfishness,  he  has  repelled  it.  But  we 
maintain  that  the  mere  possession,  or  the  lavishing  of  these 
affections,  does  not  constitute  the  race  morally  good.  Some  of 
the  most  vicious  among  mankind  have  been  distinguished  for 
their  great  sensibility — a  sensibility  abused  by  them,  however, 
and  so  the  means  of  spreading  a  wider  evil,  just  as  when  corrup- 
tion begins  in  vegetable  life,  its  progress  becomes  the  more 
rapid  and  the  more  fatal  in  proportion  to  the  richness  of  the 
vegetation. 

Besides  benevolence,  there  is  needed,  in  order  to  virtuous 
character,  a  regulating  power  of  justice.  Two  things  are  need- 
ful to  the  beauty  and  beneficence  of  that  star  which  shines  in 
the  expanse.  There  is  its  light,  and  there  is  the  regularity  of 
its  movement  in  its  allotted  course.  Conceive  this  star,  while 
retaining  the  former  of  these  qualities,  to  lose  the  latter — it 
might,  in  its  now  wayward  career  through  the  heavens,  carry 


AND  GODLINESS  OF  MAN'S  CHARACTEB.  36j 

along  with  it  dismay  and  trouble  to  every  world  which  it 
approached,  and  that  just  because  its  fire  was  still  unextin- 
guished. There  is  still,  we  acknowledge,  light  flashing  from 
man's  character  as  from  a  star,  but  it  is  as  from  a  wandering 
star,  whose  progress  we  view  with  anxiety  and  alarm. 

Man's  sinfulness,  in  so  far  as  affection  is  concerned,  consists, 
first,  in  ill-regulated  love,  and  secondly,  in  defect  of  love,  using 
love  in  its  highest  acceptation  as  denoting  something  more  than 
mere  sensibility,  as  implying  wish  and  desire.  The  former  of 
these  we  hold  to  be  the  first  in  the  order  of  nature  and  of 
succession.  There  is  first  some  wish,  or  purpose,  contrary  to 
the  fixed  law ;  and  then  there  comes  to  be  a  drying  up  of  love 
altogether  in  regard  to  some  of  its  exercises.  To  use  once  more 
our  illustration,  the  star  first  wanders  from  its  path,  and  gives, 
in  consequence,  its  light  and  heat  to  objects  different  from  those 
which  its  beams  were  meant  to  irradiate,  and  then  losing,  as  it 
wanders  further  off,  its  light  and  heat  altogether,  it  departs  into 
the  blackness  of  darkness  for  ever. 

(1.)  The  circumstance  has  often  been  observed  and  dwelt  on 
by  divines,  that  ungodliness  is  the  universal  sin  of  humanity. 
It  has  not  been  noticed  so  frequently  how  it  should  have  come  to 
be  so.  The  train  of  observation  we  have  been  pursuing  conducts, 
if  we  do  not  mistake,  to  an  adequate  explanation.  There  are 
obvious  reasons  why  a  sinful  creature  should  not  relish  a  near- 
ness of  approach  to,  or  even  so  much  as  to  meditate  upon,  a  God 
whom  he  has  so  grievously  offended.  It  is  not  difficult  to  see 
how  from  this  cause,  of  the  three  elements  which  meet  in  the 
morally  good,  namely,  the  well-wishing,  the  respect  to  law,  and 
the  respect  to  God,  it  should  be  the  last,  or  the  respect  to  God, 
which  is  first  dissevered  from  the  others,  and  ungodliness  should 
come  to  be  the  leading  exhibition  of  human  sinfulness,  and  the 
distinguishing  characteristic  of  all  fallen  creatures. 

Alcibiadesthus  expresses  his  feelings  in  reference  to  Socrates: 
— "  I  stop  my  ears,  therefore,  as  from  the  syrens,  and  flee  away 
as  fast  as  possible,  that  I  may  not  sit  down  beside  him,  and  grow 
old  in  listening  to  his  talk  ;  for  this  man  has  reduced  me  to  feel 
the  sentiment  of  blame,  which  I  imagine  no  one  could  readily 
believe  was  in  me  ;  he  alone  inspires  me  with  remorse  and  awe, 
for  I  feel  in  his  presence  my  incapacity  of  refuting  what  he  says, 
or  of  refusing  to  do  that  which  lie  directs  ;  but  when  I  depart 


366  INQUIRY  INTO  THE  VIRTUOUSNESS 

from  him,  the  glory  which  the  multitude  confers  overwhelms  me. 
I  escape,  therefore,  and  hide  myself  from  him  ;  and  when  I  see 
him,  I  am  overwhelmed  with  humiliation,  because  I  have  ne- 
glected to  do  what  I  have  confessed  ought  to  be  done,  and  often 
have  I  wished  that  he  were  no  longer  to  be  seen  among  men." 
If  such  an  effect  was  produced — if  such  were  the  wishes  excited 
by  near  contact  with  the  excellence  of  Socrates — how  much  more 
overwhelming  must  be  the  idea  of  the  unspotted  purity  of  God 
to  a  man  conscious  of  guilt  ?  Hence  the  inclination  of  man- 
kind, owing  to  the  "  humiliation  "  with  which  his  presence  over- 
whelms them,  "  not  to  sit  beside  God,"  but  rather  to  "  flee  from 
him  as  fast  as  possible,"  "  to  hide  themselves  from  him  ; "  nay, 
at  times  to  wish  that  there  was  no  God,  or  no  such  God,  to  take 
a  holy  cognizance  of  their  conduct. 

Multitudes,  we  are  aware,  are  so  far  ignorant  of  the  existence 
of  this  enmity,  that  they  have  not  so  much  as  confessed  it  to 
themselves.  And  it  is  to  be  acknowledged,  that  there  are  per- 
sons in  whom  it  is  to  some  extent  dormant ;  or  in  whom,  at  least, 
it  is  not  at  all  times  called  forth  and  excited  in  an  active  and 
positive  manlier.  But  even  when  there  is  not  the  bursting  flame, 
there  may  be  the  smouldering  embers.  The  following  illustra- 
tion may  help  us  to  understand  this.  It  is  conceivable  that  a 
person  may  entertain  a  repugnance  to  us  in  the  depths  of  his 
heart,  and  yet  this  feeling  not  be  in  constant  activity.  As  long 
as  we  are  at  a  distance  from  him,  and  as  there  is  nothing  to 
recall  the  recollection  of  our  persons  or  actions  to  his  mind,  he 
may,  in  the  busy  pursuit  of  his  usual  avocations,  forget  us  for  a 
time,  during  which  his  enmity  would  so  far  be  in  a  slumbering 
state.  But  when  we  come  into  his  presence,  and  whenever  we 
happen  to  do  anything,  it  may  be  most  unwittingly,  fitted  to 
humble  his  pride,  or  ruffle  him  in  his  ruling  passion,  then  the 
enmity  will  boil,  and  rage,  and  break  forth  with  greater  or  less 
violence,  according  to  the  temperament  of  the  individual.  Of 
this  description  is  the  enmity  of  man's  heart  towards  God.  Its 
most  common  manifestation  is  an  habitual  or  studious  foiget- 
fulness.  As  much  as  within  him  lies,  he  contrives  to  keep  away 
the  very  thought  of  God  from  his  mind,  because  it  is  a  thought 
that  troubles  him.  There  is  nothing  in  the  contemplation  to 
flatter  his  vanity — there  is  much  to  check  and  reprove  him  ;  and 
he  prefers  to  engross  himself  with  the  business  of  life,  or  the 


AND  GODLINESS  OF  MAN'S  CHARACTER.  367 

pleasures  of  the  world.  When  Palamedes  came  to  Ithaca,  to 
invite  Ulysses  to  join  in  the  expedition  against  Troy,  the  latter, 
unwilling  to  engage  in  the  undertaking,  betook  himself  to  plough- 
ing the  sand  and  sowing  salt,  on  the  pretence  of  being  visited 
with  insanity.  There  are  multitudes  as  sane  as  Ulysses,  who 
betake  themselves  to  works  as  insane,  and  all  in  the  way  of  pre- 
tence, to  excuse  themselves  from  the  performance  of  the  im- 
mediate duties  which  they  owe  to  God. 

Sometimes,  no  doubt,  notwithstanding  his  general  unwill- 
ingness, man  is  all  but  compelled  to  think  of  God,  by  the 
circumstances  in  which  he  is  placed ;  but  when  the  thought 
comes  into  his  mind,  he  banishes  it  with  all  practicable  haste, 
as  the  Gadarenes  besought  Jesus  to  depart  from  their  coasts, 
when  they  found  that,  in  consequence  of  his  visit,  a  portion  of 
their  property,  kept  by  them  contrary  to  the  law  of  Moses,  which 
they  professed  to  reverence,  had  been  destroyed.  Under  some 
impulse  of  feeling,  in  the  hour  of  deep  grief  and  disappointment, 
and  in  the  apprehension  of  overhanging  judgments,  he  betakes 
himself  to  God,  and  calls  up  the  remembrance  of  his  name  from 
the  oblivion  to  which  it  had  been  consigned ;  but  as  He  stands 
before  him  in  awfnl  majesty,  he  is  as  awe-struck  as  were  Saul 
and  the  witch  of  Endor,  when  Samuel  actually  appeared  to  them. 
In  some  other  cases  he  may  cling  to  the  thought  still  more 
fondly  and  for  a  greater  length  of  time,  as  eagerly  indeed  as  the 
Philistines  seized  the  ark  of  God,  and  carried  it  into  the  temple 
of  Dagon  ;  but  he  soon  loses  his  desire  for  so  near  an  approach 
to  God,  when  he  finds  it  inconsistent  with  the  desires  of  his 
corrupted  heart,  just  as  the  Philistines  banished  the  ark  when  it 
threw  down  their  idols  and  afflicted  their  cities.  The  great 
majority  of  mankind  come  at  last  to  learn  the  art,  too  easily 
learned  by  depraved  man — that  of  living  without  God  in  the 
world.     "  God  is  not  in  all  their  thoughts." 

True,  when  men  succeed  in  obtaining  a  false  view  of  God, 
when  they  are  enabled  to  look  upon  him  as  one  who  can  over- 
look their  failings,  and  cherish  and  countenance  them  in  their 
sins,  they  will  think  of  him  more  frequently,  and  pay  him  a 
willing  homage.  It  is  thus  that  we  account  for  the  inclination 
to  polytheism  and  idolatry  in  the  earlier  ages  of  the  world,  and 
the  simpler  stages  of  society  ;  and  it  is  thus,  too,  that  we  explain 
the  tendency  among  more  cultivated  nations,  and  in  the  present 


368  INQUIRY  INTO  THE  VIRTUOUSNESS 

day,  to  divest  God  of  his  holiness,  or  to  sink  the  idea  of  his  law 
and  government.  We  regard  these  prevailing  inclinations  as  a 
proof  of  the  deeply  seated  carnal  enmity  of  the  heart  towards  God 
— that  is,  towards  a  holy  God — that  is,  towards  the  existing  God. 
But  so  far  as  mankind  entertain  speculatively  correct  views  of 
the  Divine  character,  their  antipathy  shews  itself  in  an  habitual 
forgetfulness.  And  the  question  arises,  How  does  it  happen 
that  they  feel  no  delight  in  contemplating  that  God  who  calls 
forth  the  constant  admiration  and  praise  of  all  holy  beings 
throughout  the  universe  ?  Plainly,  because  of  some  deeply 
seated  ungodliness  which  keeps  them  from  seeing  the  loveliness 
which  all  others  admire. 

Then  there  are  times  when  this  enmity  appears  in  a  more 
open  and  offensive  form.  Whenever  God  is  forced  upon  the 
attention,  his  claims  asserted,  and  the  unsettled  accounts  between 
him  and  the  sinner  fully  written  out  and  presented,  then  the 
dormant  antipathy  is  called  into  action — the  seemingly  dead 
snake  is  warmed  into  vitality,  and  is  ready  to  inflict  its  sting. 
The  spirit  now  feels  the  enmity,  possibly  expresses  it,  perhaps 
acts  upon  it.  The  very  thought  of  God  is  positively  painful,  as 
painful  as  the  presence  of  the  man's  worst  enemy.  Not  unfre- 
quently  the  bitterness  of  the  heart  will  vent  itself  in  blasphemy  ; 
rendering  it  needful,  that  wherever  a  holy  religion  is  proclaimed, 
it  should  contain  a  prohibition  against  taking  God's  name  in 
vain.  Not  unfrequently  it  will  manifest  itself  in  prompting 
mankind  to  mar  all  that  may  be  thought  dear  to  God,  to  oppose 
all  that  may  claim  to  have  his  sanction,  and  deface  all  that 
bears  his  name  and  image.  The  fires  of  persecution  are  now 
lighted,  being  kindled  at  that  fire  which  is  burning  within  the 
bosom,  but  which,  as  it  cannot  reach  God,  is  directed  against 
all  that  may  be  supposed  to  represent  him  or  possess  his 
authority. 

We  are  apt  to  wonder  at  the  excessive  wickedness  of  the 
ancient  Jews  at  certain  eras  in  their  history,  and  their  tendency 
to  idolatry  in  the  midst  of  the  light  which  they  enjoyed. 
Possibly,  we  may  find  an  explanation  in  the  very  number  and 
nature  of  the  privileges  possessed  by  them.  They  may  have  felt 
that  God  was  too  near  them — that  the  light  was  too  oppressive  ; 
and  hence  their  disposition  to  retreat  to  darkened  groves,  in 
which   a   falsG    worship  transacted  its  rites.     We  suspect,  in 


AND  GODLINESS  OF  MAN'S  CHARACTER.  369 

particular,  that  it  was  the  very  propinquity  and  purity  of  the 
holiness  of  Jesus  which  so  irritated  the  spirit  of  his  persecutors. 
We  may  account,  on  the  same  principle,  for  the  circumstance,  not 
unfrequently  occurring,  of  the  son  of  pious  parents,  educated 
in  a  religious  home,  hating  all  that  is  spiritual  with  a  malignity 
above  that  of  other  men  ;  if  not  disposed  to  yield  to  it,  he  will 
loathe  it  all  the  more  from  the  contests  which  he  has  had  with 
it.  Hence,  also,  the  opposition  to  spiritual  truth  on  the  part  of 
some  on  whom  it  has  been  earnestly  pressed.  Those  who  have 
long  resisted  it  will  come  positively  to  nauseate  it,  as  the  wicked 
do  a  faithful  monitor  who  speaks  plainly  of  their  faults.  "  I 
hate  him,  for  he  doth  not  prophesy  good  concerning  me,  but 
evil." 

We  need  not  dwell  upon  the  greatness  and  enormity  of  such  a 
sin  as  that  now  referred  to.  Not  only  is  it  a  great  sin  in  itself, 
it  is  an  abiding  malady,  polluting  the  whole  man,  and  the  whole 
man  at  all  times,  rendering  his  very  heart  and  character  ungodly. 
Now,  as  long  as  this  ungodliness  is  in  his  bosom,  whether  in  a 
slumbering  or  more  active  state,  whether  merely  burning  within 
or  bursting  out,  we  cannot  say  of  man  that  he  is  truly  good. 
And  let  us  observe  in  this  ungodliness  the  manifestation  of  these 
two  elements,  and  in  the  order  now  named — first,  a  rebellion 
against  a  law,  and  secondly,  a  drying  up  of  the  affection. 

(2.)  This  ungodliness  is  the  sin  with  which  we  charge  all  men, 
and  there  are  other  sins  of  which  individuals  are  guilty.  These 
vary  much  in  the  case  of  different  persons.  In  all  we  may  ob- 
serve the  first  of  the  elements  now  referred  to,  the  breaking  of 
a  law,  and  in  most  of  them  a  defect  of  love  or  benevolence.  First 
the  affection  bursts  forth  from  its  channel,  and  then  it  is  dried 
up  altogether  in  the  sandy  desert  over  which  it  flows. 

Such  is  the  general  truth  which  we  regard  as  conclusively 
forced  upon  the  inquirer  by  a  survey  of  the  qualities  of  man's 
moral  nature.  The  doctrine  that  man  is  depraved  seems  to  be 
established,  but  with  several  important  limitations. 

Fwst,  mankind  have  still  much  gentleness,  much  amiability, 
and  other  qualities  implying  a  heart  susceptible  of  love.  It  is 
only  the  more  to  be  regretted  that  this  love  should  not  be 
directed  towards  God.  Even  as  regards  man,  it  is  commonly 
perverted  and  misdirected,  and  is  apt  to  be  destroyed  by  a 
growing  malignity,  or  dried  up  by  a  confirmed  selfishness  and 

2a 


370  INQUIRY  INTO  THE  VIRTUOUSNESS 

indifference  ;  but  in  the  breasts  of  many  it  dwells  as  in  a  fountain, 
and  is  ever  ready  to  flow  out. 

Secondly,  every  particular  hind  of  sin  is  not  practised  by  every 
man,  or  natural  to  every  man.  There  is,  we  have  seen,  at  least 
one  form  of  sin  which  is  common  to  all,  but  there  are  other  kinds 
which  are  peculiar  to  some  men — one  person  being  inclined  to 
pride,  another  addicted  to  intemperance,  and  a  third  distinguished 
by  his  selfish  attention  to  his  own  interests  and  comforts. 

Every  man  is  liable  to  sin,  just  as  every  man  is  liable  to 
disease  and  death.  But  in  how  many  different  ways  may  death 
come,  and  by  the  instrumentality  of  what  a  vast  number  of 
diseases  !  Sometimes  it  comes  upon  mankind  insensibly,  by  the 
slow  progress  of  consumption  ;  at  other  times  it  dries  up  the 
strength  by  the  heat  of  fever  ;  or  it  lays  its  victim  prostrate  at 
once  by  the  stroke  of  paralysis.  Now,  just  as  the  death  which 
reigns  over  all  comes  in  a  variety  of  ways,  so  the  sin  which  also 
rules  over  all  presents  itself  in  a  great  diversity  of  forms  ;  and 
we  might  as  well  seek  to  number  the  diseases  to  which  our 
frame  is  incident,  as  the  divers  lusts  which  mankind  serve. 

Yet  it  is  most  assuredly  a  very  fallacious  mode  of  reasoning 
which  would  lead  us  to  look  on  mankind  as  not  depraved, 
merely  because  they  are  not  addicted  to  every  possible  sin.  We 
suspect,  however,  that  there  are  some  who  have  no  other  ground 
for  regarding  themselves  as  morally  right  except  the  absence  of 
certain  vices.  Thus  the  miser  congratulates  himself  on  his  not 
having  run  in  debt  by  extravagance,  while  the  thoughtless 
spendthrift  rejoices  that  he  is  not  so  narrow-minded  and  con- 
tracted in  his  dispositions  and  aims  as  the  miser.  The  drunkard 
boasts  that  he  is  not  dishonest,  and  the  cunning,  deceitful  man 
tells  you,  with  an  air  of  triumph,  that  he  is  not  intemperate. 
The  man  of  dull  temperament — whose  soul  resembles  a  day  of 
mists,  without  torrents  of  rain,  indeed,  but  perpetually  cold — 
not  absolutely  dark,  but  disclosing  none  of  the  distant  land- 
scapes on  which  the  eye  of  faith  delights  to  repose — never 
brightened  by  the  sunshine  of  hope,  or  warmed  by  the  ardour 
of  fervent  charity — assumes  superiority,  because  he  keeps  free 
from  violent  excitement,  and  extricates  himself  from  difficulties 
into  which  others,  by  their  impetuosity,  contrive  to  plunge. 
Thus  every  man  would  infer,  from  the  absence  of  some  one  sin, 
the  presence  of  a  positive  virtue. 


AND  GODLINESS  OF  MAN'S  CHARACTER.  371 

In  speaking  of  man's  wickedness,  it  is  to  be  taken  into  account, 
as  a  third  limitation,  that  he  is  not  so  corrupt  that  he  cannot 
become  tvorse.  Mankind  are  commonly  not  so  depraved  in  their 
younger  years  as  in  after-life,  when  their  vicious  propensities 
have  had  time  to  expand.  Man's  natural  depravity  is  more 
like  the  seed  than  the  tree — it  may  be  compared  to  the  fountain 
rather  than  the  stream. 

But  let  no  man  congratulate  himself  upon  the  circumstance 
that  he  is  not  so  wicked  as  he  might  possibly  be.  Man's  liability 
to  fall  farther — his  capacity  for  wickedness — is  one  of  his  most 
fearful  characteristics.  The  depravity  is  often  lurking  within, 
when  it  has  not  yet  appeared  without ;  there  exists  the  spark, 
which  needs  only  to  be  fanned  by  the  winds  of  temptation  to 
break  forth  into  a  flame.  Every  one  has  not  felt  the  more 
sinful  passions  in  their  greatest  height  and  vehemence,  but  he 
may  at  least  have  experienced  them  in  their  commencing  move- 
ments. No  one  has  mingled  much  with  mankind  without  being 
thrown  into  positions,  sometimes  for  a  longer  and  sometimes  for 
a  shorter  space,  in  which  his  utmost  exertions  were  required  to 
keep  his  spirit  from  running  wild  into  disorder  or  violence. 
On  one  occasion  he  may  have  felt  a  momentary  wish  to  thwart 
a  rival  in  business  or  in  fame,  who  has  wounded  his  vanity  or 
darkened  his  prospects  of  success  ;  at  another  time  he  may  have 
felt  disposed  to  exact  revenge  for  an  offence,  real  or  imaginary  ; 
and  again,  he  may  have  longed  to  obtain  forbidden  pleasure,  of 
which  he  could  taste  without  risk  of  detection.  All  of  us  must 
have  felt  these  passions,  or  others  equally  dangerous,  stirring 
within  the  bosom ;  and  on  such  occasions,  when  the  soul  is 
tempest-tossed  and  stirred,  we  are  permitted  to  discover  depths 
which  might  otherwise  have  lain  concealed  in  their  own  silent 
darkness.  Such  feelings  would  never  spring  up  in  a  breast  per- 
fectly holy  ;  they  are  indications  of  a  deeply  seated  depravity. 
They  are  the  initiatory  or  elementary  states  of  those  passions 
which  carry  men  such  far  lengths  in  wickedness.  They  are  like 
the  heavy  drops  which  sometimes  come  before  the  shower,  like 
the  strong  gusts  which  precede  the  full  fury  of  the  coming 
tempest.  They  are  the  first  heavings  of  an  ocean,  which  may 
soon  be  tossed  by  the  continuance  of  the  same  influence  to  its 
lowest  profundities.  Only  allow  them  to  increase — only  en- 
courage them  by  indulgence — only  add  fuel  to  the  fire — and 


372  THEORY  OF  THE  PRODUCTION  OF 

they  will  soon  break  forth  with  unappeasable  fury,  while  the 
astonished  reason  has  to  stand  by  in  utter  impotence. 

It  is  a  most  alarming  consideration  that  man's  character  is 
seldom  stationary — it  is  like  the  vessel  on  the  wide  ocean  with 
wind  and  tide  against  it — and  if  he  is  not  struggling  against 
the  passions,  they  will  hurry  him  into  yet  greater  extremes  of 
wickedness.  What  melancholy  proofs  do  we  see  in  the  world 
around  us  !  You  wonder  at  the  drunkard  become  so  infatuated; 
but  the  grieving,  the  downcast  mother,  or  the  disheartened 
wife,  can  tell  you  of  a  time — and  a  sigh  heaves  her  bosom  as 
she  speaks  of  it — when  the  now  outcast  and  degraded  one  was 
loved  and  respected,  and  returned  with  regularity  to  quiet  and 
domestic  peace  in  the  bosom  of  the  family.  But,  alas  !  he  would 
not  believe  the  warnings  of  a  parent,  he  did  not  attend  to  the 
meek  unobtrusive  recommendations  of  a  wife  or  sister,  he 
despised  the  commands  of  the  living  God ;  and  seeking  for 
happiness  where  it  has  never  been  found,  he  spurned  at  those 
who  told  him  that  the  habit  was  fixing  its  roots  ; — till  now  he 
has  become  the  scorn  and  jest  of  the  thoughtless,  and  the  object 
of  pity  to  the  wise  and  good  ;  boasting  to  his  companions,  in 
the  midst  of  his  brutal  mirth,  of  his  strength  of  mind,  and  yet 
unable  to  resist  the  least  temptation  ;  talking  of  his  kindness  of 
heart,  while  his  friends  and  family  are  pining  in  poverty,  or 
weeping  over  his  waywardness.  It  is  only  one  of  many  indica- 
tions that  might  be  adduced  of  the  tendency  of  sin  to  propagate 
itself,  and  spread  throughout  the  soul  in  ever-widening  circles. 

SECT.  V. THEORY  OF  THE  PRODUCTION  OF  THE  EXISTING 

MORAL  STATE  OF  MAN. 

We  have  been  viewing  some  of  the  characteristics  of  man's 
nature,  and  the  following  explanation  seems  as  if  it  might 
account  historically  for  the  leading  phenomena. 

We  put  the  case  of  a  being  constituted  in  all  other  respects 
as  a  man  is,  with  his  high  faculties,  his  lovely  affections,  and 
amiable  feelings ;  but  in  whom  the  moral  law  is  wont  to  exer- 
cise its  becoming  office,  and  whose  heart  is  filled  with  love  to 
the  Creator  and  the  creature.  This  being,  yielding  to  tempting 
suggestions  made  to  him,  is  led  to  commit  a  deed  that  is  openly 
sinful.     The  act  must  speedily  pass  under  the  review  of  the 


THE  EXISTING  MORAL  STATE  OF  MAN.  373 

conscience,  and  the  conscience  pronounces  an  instant  condemna- 
tion. What  is  to  be  done  under  this  sense  of  sin  ?  Let  the 
person,  some  one  may  answer,  cherish  repentance,  and  seek  for- 
giveness from  God.  Now,  repentance  is  undoubtedly  the  duty, 
and  the  instant  duty,  of  a  being  so  situated.  But  then,  this 
repentance  cannot  make  atonement  for  the  previous  neglect  of 
duty.  Conscience  undoubtedly  approves  of  the  penitence  as 
required  in  the  circumstances,  but  it  is  beyond  the  province  of 
conscience  to  say  that  thereby  amends  is  made  for  the  evil 
done  ;  nay,  the  conscience  continues  to  condemn  the  deed  even 
after  repentance,  and  points  to  a  punishment  to  follow.  Even 
on  the  supposition  that  repentance  succeeded,  and  that  there 
was  never  another  sin  committed,  still  the  mind  would  look 
back  to  the  transgression  as  a  fearfully  dark  event,  suggesting 
terrible  forebodings. 

But  it  is  just  as  conceivable  that  the  conduct  may  be  different. 
It  may  be  doubted  whether  genuine  repentance  in  the  circum- 
stances is  within  the  native  power  of  the  human  mind.  A  moral 
and  responsible  being  departing  from  the  course  of  rectitude 
cannot  return  to  it,  any  more  than  a  planet  wandering  from, 
can  come  back  to  its  path.  It  seems,  at  least,  to  be  as  probable 
that  the  individual  referred  to  refuses  to  repent,  or  rather  puts 
aside  repentance.  His  mind  will  now  be  in  a  singularly  per- 
plexed and  distressing  state.  Following  the  natural  train  of 
mental  association,  according  to  which  everything  that  excites 
the  mind  returns  repeatedly  before  it,  the  transgression  will 
often  present  itself ;  and  as  often  as  the  memory  recalls  it,  the 
conscience  will  condemn  the  deed,  and  hurry  the  thoughts 
onward  to  impending  judgments.  These  recollections  and  anti- 
cipations will  be  accompanied  by  a  train  of  troubled  feelings, 
crowding  on  one  another  like  the  waves  of  an  ocean  agitated  by 
opposing  winds  and  currents. 

But  is  there  no  way  by  which  the  recollections  of  the  sin  may 
be  banished  from  the  mind  ?  As  there  are  laws  of  association 
which  recall  the  sinful  deed,  there  are  other  principles  in  the 
mind  which  prompt  it  to  turn  away  from  the  thought  and  con- 
templation of  that  which  brings  only  pain.  A  contest  has  now 
begun  in  a  mind  which  was  before  at  rest,  and  to  all  appear- 
ance it  is  a  contest  which,  if  there  be  no  interposition  on  the 
part  of  God,  must  rage  for  ever.     There  are  laws  of  association 


374  THEORY  OF  THE  PRODUCTION  OF 

good  in  themselves,  which  will  tend  to  recall  the  deed  just  be- 
cause it  has  excited  the  mind  ;  and  the  deed  recalled  calls  forth 
a  condemnation  by  the  conscience,  followed  by  painful  emotior.s: 
and  speedily  as  they  rise,  there  will  be  an  attempt  to  drive  them 
away  just  because  they  are  distracting.  The  aversion  to  the 
contemplation  of  an  unpleasant  event  will  lead  the  individual 
to  mingle  in  such  scenes,  that  the  objects  presented  to  the  eye 
may  carry  away  the  mind  to  other  topics ;  or  he  will  endea- 
vour so  to  change  the  train  of  association,  that  more  pleasing 
thoughts  may  rise  up  before  the  mind.  The  attempts  made  to 
expel  the  evil  serve  only  to  exasperate  it.  The  studious  en- 
deavours to  bury  the  sin  in  oblivion  will  just  turn  it  up  the 
more  frequently  to  have  a  new  and  farther  sentence  pronounced 
upon  it  by  the  conscience,  and  the  sentence  will  be  followed  up 
by  those  avenging  feelings  which  wait  upon  the  conscience  as 
the  officers  of  its  court  of  justice. 

The  struggle  is  now  thickened,  and  other  parties  are  involved 
in  its  fearful  and  all-absorbing  eddies  and  whirlpools.  When 
the  governing  power  of  the  soul  has  lost  its  authority,  the  appe- 
tites and  affections  of  the  mind  will  follow  each  its  own  impulse ; 
and  all  will  become  unsettled  and  disordered,  as  in  a  country 
where  there  is  no  government,  and  every  man  does  that  which 
is  light  in  his  own  eyes.  Ev^ry  lust  and  appetite  now  seeks  its 
gratification,  and  acknowledges  no  authority  to  control  it.  The 
love  of  happiness,  good  in  itself,  and  when  properly  guided,  now 
becomes  a  blind  chase  after  pleasure  of  every  kind.  The  sensi- 
bility is  dried  up  when  it  ought  to  flow,  and  forthwith  comes 
"  like  a  wide  rushing  in  of  waters,"  when  it  should  be  restrained. 
The  benevolent  affections  refuse  to  embrace  certain  objects  to 
which  thev  ought  to  be  directed,  and  flow  out  towards  others  in 
the  streams  of  a  doting  and  capricious  love.  Tbe  intellectual 
faculties,  before  employed  in  seeking  after  truth  and  in  deviling 
good,  are  now  exercised  in  contriving  means  of  banishing  the 
recollection  of  sin,  and  gratifying  the  unrestrained  feelinga  And 
there  is  another  element  which  now  comes  into  play.  ."Since  sin 
has  been  committed,  and  condemnation  pronounced,  it  is  thought 
that  a  few  more  offences  may  not  much  aggravate  the  guilt,  or 
place  the  sinner  in  a  much  worse  condition  ;  and  sins  come 
to  be  knowingly  and  wilfully  committed.  The  malignant 
passions  now  come  out  as  beasts  of  prey  do  in  the  night,  and 


THE  EXISTING  MORAL  STATE  OF  MAN.  375 

the  filthy  lusts  creep  out  as  insects  crawl  forth  in  the  clamp  and 
moisture. 

Such,  we  might  predict,  according  to  the  principles  of  the 
human  mind,  would  be  the  general  issue  to  which  the  commission 
of  sin  would  conduct  a  being  so  situated.  The  particular  results 
cannot  be  anticipated  by  human  sagacity.  We  could  confi- 
dently predict,  that  evil  effects  must  follow,  were  a  steam- 
locomotive  to  pass  off  the  rails,  or  a  stream  to  burst  its  banks, 
or  the  ocean  to  break  down  the  barriers  against  which  it  beats, 
though  v,  e  might  not  be  able  to  tell  the  particular  direction 
or  channel  which  the  rebellious  agent  might  take.  We  can,  in 
like  manner,  foresee  evils  that  must  follow  from  the  commission 
of  sin  on  the  part  of  a  moral  agent,  though  we  may  not  be  able 
to  define  the  precise  turn  which  they  would  take  ;  nay,  this 
turn  would  evidently  depend  on  the  peculiar  character  of  the 
individual,  on  the  circumstances  in  which  he  happened  to  be 
placed,  and  the  nature  of  the  sin  which  he  first  committed. 

A  stream  bursting  from  its  course  will  for  a  time  spread 
tumultuously  in  all  directions,  carrying  devastation  wherever  it 
goes  ;  but  it  will  at  last  form  a  new  channel  for  itself.  In  much 
the  same  way,  the  fallen  being  we  are  contemplating,  after 
turning  hither  and  thither  for  a  time,  would  soon  acquire  certain 
confirmed  practices  and  habits,  determined  partly  by  his  situation, 
and  partly  by  the  peculiarities  of  his  native  dispositions.  If  he 
is  near  to  God,  it  is  conceivable  that  he  may  speedily  be  exas- 
perated into  open  rebellion  ;  and  if  driven  to  a  distance  from  God, 
he  may  rather  seek  to  abandon  himself  to  sulkiness,  and  forget- 
fulness  of  God,  and  of  all  that  is  good.  If  consigned  immedi- 
ately to  punishment,  there  will  result  a  confirmed  obstinacy  and 
hatred  of  God  ;  and  provided  a  period  of  respite  and  compara- 
tive freedom  be  allowed,  there  will  rather — as  in  the  case  of 
Cain — be  a  swelling  pride,  and  an  aspiring  ambition,  prompting 
to  new  and  daring  enterprises.  The  employments  and  habits  of 
the  parties  would  also  be  determined  by  their  native  propensities, 
now  abused  and  perverted,  and  flowing  out,  each  in  its  own 
channel,  all  unrestrained  by  higher  principle.  Our  epic  poet 
seems  to  be  as  philosophically  correct  as  he  is  poetically  pictur- 
esque, in  the  view  which  he  gives  of  the  fallen  angels,  when  he 
represents  them  as  differing  from  each  other  in  their  characters, 
and  each  under  his  own  predominating  lust  and  passion. 


376  THEORY  OF  THE  PRODUCTION  OF 

It  must  be  left  to  every  man's  consciousness  to  determine  how 
far  the  delineation  given  bears  any  general  resemblance  to  his 
own  felt  experience.     We  say,  general  resemblance  ;  for  it  will 
at  once  occur  to  every  one  that  there  is  a  difference,  and  that  not 
of  an  unimportant  kind,  between  the  hypothetical  and  real  case  : 
and  we  refer  to  this  as  sufficient  to  explain  the  discrepancy  be- 
tween the  picture  which  has  been  drawn  and  the  actual  state  of 
man.     In  the  supposed  case,  the  individual  remembers  a  time 
when  he  was  without  sin  ;  whereas  the  memory  of  man  cannot 
go  back  to  a  time  when  he  was  not  transgressing  the  command- 
ments of  God.     This  difference  in  the  cause  must  produce  a 
difference  in  the  effect,  and  that  of  an  influential  character.  The 
conscience  of  sin  cannot  be  so  acute  when  the  mind  never  knew 
what  it  was  to  be  unspotted,  as  it  must  necessarily  be  when  it 
can  look  back  on  a  time  when  it  was  untainted  by  sin  in  thought 
or  feeling.     Hence  the  deaclness  of  the  conscience  on  the  part  of 
mankind  in  general,  so  different  from  the  keen  sensibility  of 
those  angelic  beings  who  have  fallen  from  purity.      We  may 
now  discover  one  reason  why  man  in  his  present  state  is  pre- 
vented from  reaching  that  demoniacal  madness  and  fury  which 
agitate  all  those  who  have  an  acute  sense  of  the  sin  in  which 
they  still  indulge.     Whether,  after  the  day  of  judgment,  man 
may  not  be  driven  to  the  same  extreme,  is  a  question  which  will 
fall  to  be  considered  in  a  future  section.     We  refer  to  this  differ- 
ence between  fallen  angels  and  fallen  men,  in  order  to  explain 
how  the  latter  may  live  in  a  state  of  insensibility  in  regard  to 
their  sin.     This  same  circumstance,  as  accounting  for  the  dead- 
ness  of  the  human  conscience,  also  explains  the  confirmed  nature 
of  the  sinful  affections  which  mankind  cherish,  and  the  courses 
of  conduct  pursued  by  them.     Springing  up  with  tliem  from 
their  youth,  their  sinful  affections  and  habits  are  entwined  with 
every  part  of  their  nature,  and  have  become,  as  it  were,  essential 
parts  of  themselves.     These  two  tendencies,  originating  in  the 
circumstance  that  sin  is  natural  to  mankind,  act  and  react  upon, 
and  strengthen  each  other.     Sin  is  scarcely  noticed,  because  it 
has  all  along  been  committed  ;  and  because  it  is  not  observed, 
it  continues  to  grow  and  strengthen  without  check  and  restraint. 
This  twofold  action  must  continue  till  such  time  as  the  whole 
position  of  the  man  is  changed  by  events  in  this  world  or  the 
next,  bringing  his  guilt  before  his  mind  in  all  its  hideousness 


THE  EXISTING  MORAL  STATE  OF  MAN.  377 

and  enormity,  and  setting  him  upon  a  new  and  different  career, 
more  nearly  allied  to  that  of  the  fallen  angelic  host. 

But  taking  this  most  important  difference  into  account,  it  is 
worthy  of  being  inquired,  whether  the  hypothetical  case  does  not 
in  some  measure  enable  us  to  understand  the  mystery  of  man's 
nature  and  character*     In  particular,  there  are  three  classes  of 

*  We  wish  it  to  be  understood,  that  we  do  not  profess  in  this  treatise  to  clear 
up  what  should  ever  be  regarded  as  the  profoundest  of  mysteries,  the  origin  of 
evil,  and  original  sin.     In  these  sections  it  is  proposed  simply  to  give  an  account 
of  certain  phenomena  connected  with  sin  in  man's  heart ;  and  in  other  passages  in 
which  the  topic  is  alluded  to,  it  is  meant  merely  to  shew  how  man's  freedom 
throws  the  blame  of  his  guilt  upon  himself,  and  not  at  all  to  explain  how  God 
should  have  allowed  sin  to  appear  in  the  universe.     The  origin  of  evil,  like  every 
other  beginning,  shrouds  itself  in  darkness.    The  various  theories  on  this  subject, 
as  well  as  on  the  nature  of  sin,  are  discussed  with  great  ability  in  Muller's  Chris- 
tian Doctrine  of  Sin.     Leibnitz'  doctrine  of  Optimism  is  the  most  sublime  attempt 
ever  made  to  solve  the  mystery,  but  it  cannot  be  so  stated  as  not  to  involve 
this  mystery,  that  God  should  select  a  system  in  which  evil  is  allowed  that  good 
may  come.     Some  would  clear  up  this  mystery,  and  every  other,  by  representing 
sin  as  mere  privation ;  but  we  never  can  be  made  to  believe  that  deceit,  malignity, 
adultery,  are  mere  negations ;  they  are  as  positive  acts  as  integrity,  benevolence, 
chastity.     A  similar  objection  lies  against  the  doctrine  which  places  it  in  creature 
imperfection.     All  those  theories  wbich  proceed  on  the  idea  that  evil  is  needful  in 
order  to  call  forth  and  confirm  the  good,  are  founded  on  inadequate  views  of  the 
evil  of  sin,  and  overlook  the  fact  that  the  evil  quite  as  often  seduces  the  good,  as 
the  good  overcomes  the  evil.     The  theory  of  the  sensational  overcoming  the  moral 
and  spiritual,  does  not  embody  a  full  statement  of  the  facts ;  for  there  may  be  sin, 
such  as  unbelief  and  pride,  where  there  is  no  sensualism,  and  it  fails  to  shew  how 
man  should  have  been  so  constituted  as  that  sensualism  should  prevail.     The  view 
that  all  sin  originates  in  selfishness  is  not  true  to  our  nature,  for  there  may  be  sin 
where  there  is  no  formal  or  calculating  selfishness ;  and  if  by  selfishness  is  meant 
merely  the  rebellion  of  an  inferior  impulse,  we  have  merely  the  statement  of  the 
fact,  but  no  explanation.     All  that  man  can  know — and  this  he  does  know — with 
certainty  is,  that  sin  is  as  much  a  reality  as  moral  good,  and  that  the  one  is  made 
known  to  us  by  the  same  moral  power  as  the  other.     As  to  original  sin,  it  should 
ever  be  treated  as  a  fact  established,  but  shrouded  in  mystery.     Its  existence  can 
be  argued  very  immediately  from  the  facts  of  moral  experience.     All  inquiries  into 
actual  sin  conduct  us  to  an  original  sin.     The  circumstance  that  all  persons  sin  as 
soon  as  they  come  to  act  for  themselves,  is  a  clear  proof  of  the  existence  of  a  sinful 
nature.     Man's  state  by  nature  is  much  the  same  as  that  of  one  who  had  produced 
a  sinful  state  of  will  by  previous  sinful  acts.     This  prepares  us  to  believe,  on  the 
authority  of  the  Word  of  God,  in  a  relation  of  our  sinful  nature  to  the  common  father 
of  the  race — which  farther  fact,  however,  is  not  fitted  to  remove  the  mystery.     All 
such  inquiries,  too,  conduct  us  to  a  slavery  of  the  will — a  fact  which  cannot  be  incon- 
sistent with  its  essential  freedom.     The  doctrines  of  the  Old  Light  school  of  theolo- 
gians on  these  subjects  seem  to  us  substantially  correct,  though  they  have  at 
times  set  forth  dogmatic  statements  which  go  beyond  the  letter  of  the  Word — and 
on  such  a  subject  human  logic  may  err  the  moment  it  passes  beyond  the  simple 


378  THEORY  OF  THE  PRODUCTION  OF 

phenomena,  which  we  are  enabled  to  explain,  and  these  among 
the  most  curious  in  the  human  mind. 

First,  we  see  how,  on  such  a  hypothesis,  there  is  room  for  the 
exercise  of  all  the  faculties  of  man's  nature,  and  also  for  an  ex- 
hibition of  the  individual  character  of  individual  men,  and  for  a 
variety  of  character  on  the  part  of  mankind  generally.  In  the 
fall  of  man,  much  the  same  effects  have  followed  as  we  read  of 
being  produced  by  earthquakes,  which  have  turned  rectilineal 
alleys  into  crooked  ones,  changed  the  courses  of  rivers,  and 
thrown  one  man's  property  upon  another  ;  or  as- have  been  pro- 
duced in  those  metamorphic  geological  rocks  which  have  changed 
their  structure  without  changing  their  elements.  There  has 
been  a  similar  twisting  of  the  human  character  in  the  fall,  with- 
out, however,  the  constitution  of  man's  nature  being  annihilated. 
Its  faculties  do  not  work  as  before ;  but  still  they  work,  though 
in  a  new  way,  as  we  see  all  the  vital  functions  of  those  who  have 
been  deformed  from  the  womb  playing  in  them  as  in  persons  of 
full  form  and  stature.  The  man  of  high  ability  will  be  a  man 
of  high  ability  still  ;  the  man  of  deep  sensibility  will  still  have 
a  fountain  of  emotion  ready  to  flow  out.  There  may  still  be 
shrewd  observation,  lofty  speculation,  consecutive  argument,  fine 
fancy,  bold  imagination,  tender  sensibility,  and  elevated  senti- 
ment. Without  any  godliness,  and  with  a  mind  utterly  per- 
verted, there  may  be  ingenuity,  like  that  of  Hume — acuteness, 
like  that  of  Voltaire — a  noble  independence  of  sentiment,  like 
that  of  Burns  — a  sensibilitv  as  tender  as  that  of  Kousseau — a 
reach  of  fancy  like  that  of  Shelley — or  a  power  of  anatomizing 
the  human  heart,  as  profound  as  that  of  Byron. 

Secondly,  we  see  how  there  may  be  many  amiable  and  even 
noble  and  generous  qualities  in  man's  fallen  nature.  Just  as 
the  disordered  machine  may  perform  many  graceful  evolutions, 
shewing  what  it  could  do  if  properly  regulated ;  just  as  the 
maniac  may  sometimes  reason  correctly,  or  even  exhibit  brilliant 
intellectual  feats :  so  a  disordered  moral  nature  is  not  incom- 

explication  (analytic  not  synthetic)  of  Scripture  language.  Of  this  we  are  certain, 
that  the  New  Light  school  have  not,  by  all  their  theories,  let  in  a  single  ray  of 
light  on  the  darkness.  But  we  must  not  allow  ourselves  to  enter  too  far  into  a 
topic  which  cannot  be  treated  fully  without  entering  upon  Biblical  Theology. 
We  have  gone  so  far  in  order  to  shew,  that  in  Ethics,  as  in  a  thousand  questions 
in  Physics,  we  must  often  rest  satisfied  with  knowing  the  fact  without  knowing 
its  origin,  ground,  or  explanation. 


THE  EXISTING  MORAL  STATE  OF  MAN.  379 

patible  with  the  exercise  of  a  hundred  pleasing  accomplishments, 
and  the  working  of  not  a  few  disinterested  and  benevolent 
affections. 

The  theory  now  developed  also  serves  to  explain  a  third  very 
important  class  of  phenomena,  which  we  would  now  proceed  to 
consider,  being  the  workings  of  conscience  in  the  soul  of  fallen 
man. 

SECT.  VI. — STATE  OF  THE  CONSCIENCE  IN  THE  DEPRAVED 

NATURE. 

It  is  very  difficult  to  determine,  in  a  precise  and  philosophical 
manner,  wherein  the  conscience  in  man's  existing  nature  differs, 
in  respect  of  place  and  authority,  from  the  conscience  in  those 
beings  in  whom  it  subordinates  every  other  faculty  and  feeling. 
There  is  little  difficulty,  indeed,  in  proving  that  man's  moral 
nature  is  in  a  state  of  derangement,  and  that  the  moral  faculty 
has  not  the  power  which  it  ought  to  possess.  It  is  as  easy  to 
demonstrate  that  there  is  disorder  in  man's  moral  state  as  to 
shew  that  there  is  derangement  in  the  intellect  of  the  lunatic. 
In  some  cases  we  could  bring  proof  of  the  madman's  insanity 
sufficient  to  convince  for  the  time  the  intellect  of  the  madman 
himself.  We  can  in  every  case  make  the  conscience  decide  that 
man's  moral  nature  is  disorganized.  We  can  constrain  every 
man  to  condemn  himself,  just  as  the  people  of  England  made 
the  most  infamous  of  their  judges  (Jeffreys)  write  a  warrant 
for  his  own  apprehension.  But  it  becomes  a  much  more  diffi- 
cult tusk  to  shew  wherein  this  disorder  precisely  consists,  as 
difficult  as  to  determine  wherein  intellectual  derangement  lies 
— a  question  which  has  hitherto  baffled  the  most  sagacious 
observers. 

It  is  a  common  way  of  accounting  for  the  anomalies  in  man's 
moral  state  to  say,  in  a  loose  and  general  way,  that  the  con- 
science has  lost  its  control  over  the  other  faculties  of  the  human 
mind.  Now,  it  is  quite  true  that  the  conscience  has  lost  its 
proper  control,  but  it  has  not  lost  all  power.  On  the  contrary, 
it  is  in  some  respects  as  active  and  energetic  as  ever.  It  works 
not  the  less  powerfully  because  it  works  destructively.  A  court 
of  justice  perverted  into  a  court  of  injustice  may  be  as  active  in 
its  latter  as  in  its  former  capacity.     The  Court  of  Inquisition  in 


380  STATE  OF  THE  CONSCIENCE  IN 

Spain,  the  Star-Chamber  and  the  Court  of  High  Commission  in 
the  reign  of  the  Stuarts  in  our  own  country,  and  the  Tribunals 
in  Paris  in  the  Keign  of  Terror,  were  as  busily  employed,  and  as 
potent,  as  the  most  righteous  courts  that  ever  sat  in  the  same 
kingdoms.  It  is  not  conceivable  that  the  conscience  should 
ever  cease  to  exist  in  the  breast  of  any  responsible  agent  ;  cer- 
tain it  is,  that  in  man's  present  nature  it  often  wields  a  tremen- 
dous energy.  Misery  never  reaches  its  utmost  intensity  till  it 
comes  to  be  inflicted  by  the  scourges  of  an  accusing  conscience. 
Wickedness  never  becomes  so  unrelenting  as  when  it  seems  to 
have  received  the  sanction  of  moral  law.  What  might  other- 
wise have  been  a  mere  impulse  of  blind  passion  becomes  now 
persevering  and  systematic  villany  or  cruelty.  Not  unfrequently 
it  assumes  the  shape  of  cool-blooded  persecution,  committed 
without  reluctance  and  without  remorse.  The  conscience  now 
shows  what  had  been  its  power  for  good  if  properly  exercised, 
and  how  it  can  bear  down  and  subordinate  all  the  other  and 
mere  sympathetic  feelings  of  the  mind. 

The  cruelty  inflicted  in  times  of  political  convulsion  furnishes 
a  too  apposite  illustration.  It  becomes  so  great  just  because  it 
has  taken  the  name  of  justice,  and  seems  to  be  the  avenger  of 
the  trampled  rights  of  men,  whether  of  princes  or  people. 
Besides  feelings  of  personal  revenge,  there  has  been  an  idea  of 
supporting  the  rights  of  sovereigns,  and  the  cause  of  social  order, 
in  those  dreadful  injuries  which  tyrants  have  inflicted  on  their 
subjects  who,  in  fact  or  appearance,  were  disposed  to  rebellion. 
It  was  because  they  were  esteemed  the  enemies  of  the  liberties 
of  the  people  that  so  many  were  hurried  to  the  prison  and  the 
guillotine  during  the  frenzy  of  the  French  Revolution  ;  and  it 
is  certain  that  some  of  the  most  prominent  actors  in  the  most 
atrocious  scenes,  such  as  Robespierre,  were  not  naturally  cruel. 
Oppression,  whether  exercised  by  the  many  or  the  few,  has 
never  been  intensely  severe  till  it  has  assumed  the  name,  and 
professes  to  assert  and  avenge  the  rights,  of  justice  ;  and  it  now 
becomes  so  unrelenting,  just  because  it  does  everything  in  the 
name  of  law  and  conscience.  We  have  heard  of  the  bitterness 
of  legalized  tyranny,  that  is,  of  tyranny  legalized  by  civil  law ; 
but  this  is  nothing  to  the  severity  which  claims  to  be  consecrated 
by  moral  law. 

The  persecution  becomes  tenfold  more  bitter  and  unrelenting 


THE  DEPRAVED  NATURE.  381 

when,  instead  of  the  name  of  justice,  it  can  take  to  itself  the  still 
more  sacred  name  of  religion,  and  the  actors  imagine  that  they 
are  promoting  higher  interests  than  those  of  man,  and  doing 
service  to  God.  "  The  apotheosis  of  error,"  says  Bacon,  "  is  the 
greatest  evil  of  all."  Take  the  following  illustration  of  the  two 
species  of  cruelty. 

In  one  of  the  instructive  incidents  of  the  French  ^Revolution, 
we  have  the  record  of  a  lady  of  rank,  (mother  of  the  Marquis  de 
Custine,)  assaulted  by  an  infernal  mob  as  she  was  descending  the 
stairs  of  the  building  in  which  her  father-in-law  was  being  tried. 
"It  is  the  daughter  of  the  traitor!"  (observe  how  men  must  first 
defame  those  whom  they  injure,)  was  the  language  which,  mingled 
with  horrid  imprecations,  reached  her  ears.  Already  some,  with 
naked  swords,  had  placed  themselves  before  her ;  others,  half 
clothed,  had  caused  their  women  to  draw  back — a  certain  sign 
that  murder  was  about  to  be  enacted  ;  and  she  felt  that  the  first 
symptom  of  weakness  betrayed  by  her  would  be  the  symptom  of 
her  death.  At  this  crisis,  she  observed  a  fisher-woman  among 
the  foremost  of  the  crowd.  The  woman,  who  was  revolting  in 
appearance,  held  an  infant  in  her  arms.  The  lady  approached 
her,  and  said,  "What  a  sweet  babe  you  have!"  "Take  it," 
replied  the  parent,  who  understood  her  by  one  word  and  glance  ; 
"  you  can  return  it  to  me  at  the  foot  of  the  steps."  With  the 
child  in  her  arms,  the  lady  descended  into  the  court,  unsaluted 
by  even  an  abusive  word.*  It  is  a  picture  of  the  scenes  of  a 
political  convulsion  ;  and  we  discover  in  it  the  working  of  an 
unenlightened  conscience,  and  a  perverted  sense  of  wrong,  mak- 
ing the  actors  to  clothe  their  victims  in  imaginary  guilt,  before 
treating  them  as  guilty.  Mingled  with  this  perverted  moral 
feeling,  we  discover  sympathetic  feelings,  more  particularly  in 
the  female  bosom  ;  and  we  observe  these  feelings  gaining  over 
the  very  conscience  at  first  perverted,  and  leading  the  most  brutal 
to  act  in  a  becoming  manner,  when  their  feelings  of  compassion 
are  in  the  right  direction. 

The  massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew  exhibits  a  still  darker  scene, 
and  one  as  characteristic  of  a  religious  (so-called)  as  the  other  is 
of  a  political  convulsion.  A  ruthless  murderer  lays  hold  of  an 
infant,  and  while  holding  it,  the  babe  smiles  in  his  face,  and 
begins  to  play  with  his  beard  ;  but  it  is  to  no  purpose,  for  the 

*  Introd.  of  Custiue's  Emp.  of  Czar. 


382  STATE  OF  THE  CONSCIENCE  IN 

dagger  is  instantly  plunged  into  the  child's  breast,  and  the  body 
is  cast  into  the  river  amidst  the  jeers  of  an  infuriated  populace 
who  are  crying  out,  "  Where  is  now  your  God  ?  What  is  become 
of  all  your  psalms  and  prayers  now  ?"  The  scene  that  follows 
is  not  less  characteristic.  A  crowd  of  persons  have  assembled 
before  the  gates  of  the  church  at  Lyons,  and  are  waiting  on  their 
knees  the  return  of  an  ecclesiastical  dignitary,  who  had  been 
paying  his  devotions  in  the  interior  of  the  building.  They  are  the 
very  persons  who  had  been  perpetrating  wholesale  murders  or 
inciting  the  murderers  ;  and  now  they  are  waiting  the  absolution 
and  blessing  of  the  cardinal.  As  he  approaches,  they  bend  their 
heads  in  lowliest  adoration ;  and  he  lifts  up  his  hands,  and  grants 
them  forgiveness  and  the  blessing  of  heaven.  The  cries  of  the 
murdered  are  forgotten  by  the  mob  as  they  retire  ;  their  minds 
inhaling  the  incense  of  an  apparently  approving  conscience, 
which  seems  to  point  to  an  approving  God. 

Such  facts  as  these  show  that  whatever  may  be  the  fault  of 
the  conscience,  it  has  not  lost  its  power.  While  man's  moral 
nature  is  completely  disorganized,  it  has  lost  none  of  its  essential 
elements. 

The  conditions  of  responsibility  seem  to  be  conscience,  will, 
and  intelligence — the  conscience  being  the  law,  the  will  the 
agent,  and  the  intelligence  the  means  of  announcing  the  state 
of  the  case  to  the  law.  The  will,  as  the  agent,  is  the  immediate 
seat  of  good  or  evil,  and  all  evil  may  be  traced  primarily  in  it. 
But  the  will,  if  depraved,  will  soon  come  to  sway  the  intelligence, 
and  the  intelligence  gives  a  false  report  to  the  conscience,  which 
utters,  in  consequence,  a  false  judgment.  If  this  view  is  correct, 
then  we  see  that  the  moral  disorder,  beginning  in  the  will,  lies 
all  along  essentially  in  the  will,  which  corrupts  the  intelligence, 
which,  again,  deceives  the  conscience.  As  long  as  the  will  is 
corrupt,  the  intelligence  will  be  perverted,  and  the  conscience 
deluded.  Give  us  but  a  corrected  will,  and  the  intelligence  will 
give  in  faithful  reports,  and  the  conscience  will  become  an  unerr- 
ing guide.  "  And  here  we  may  take  occasion  to  observe  the 
misery  of  man's  corrupted  nature,  wherein  those  faculties  which 
were  originally  ordained  for  mutual  assistance,  do  now  exercise 
a  mutual  imposture  ;  and  as  man  did  join  with  a  fellow-creature 
to  dishonour,  and  if  it  had  been,  possible  to  deceive  his  Maker, 
so  in  the  faculties  of  man,  we  may  discover  a  joint  conspiracy  in 


THE  DEPRAVED  NATURE.  383 

the  working  of  their  own  overthrow  and  reproach,  and  a  secret 
joy  in  one  to  be  deceived  by  another."* 

There  are  two  ways  by  which  the  mind,  in  its  voluntary  action, 
contrives  to  deceive  the  conscience. 

First,  It  contrives  to  banish,  as  much  as  possible,  the  remem- 
brance of  the  sinful  acts  committed.  When  men  go  to  sleep, 
they  darken  their  windows ;  and  when  the  guilty  wish  to  be 
undisturbed,  they  shut  out  all  consideration  of  the  evil  they  have 
done.  The  polluting  lusts  that  were  fondled,  so  long  as  they 
could  communicate  pleasure,  are  now  banished  out  of  sight  when 
they  have  served  their  purpose  ;  as  the  embalmers  in  ancient 
Egypt — sent  for,  in  the  first  instance,  with  avidity — had  to  flee 
as  fast  as  they  could  after  their  offensive  work  was  completed. 
The  malignant  passions,  after  being  gratified,  must  keep  out 
of  sight,  as  hired  assassins  are  got  rid  of  after  they  have  done 
the  deed. 

Secondly,  the  mind  learns  to  present  the  deeds  which  it  wishes 
to  do  or  to  avoid  in  a  false  light.  Certain  features  are  brought 
out  into  prominent  relief,  and  others  are  as  studiously  hid  from 
the  view.  Hence  we  find  multitudes  rushing  eagerly  to  what  is 
evil,  but  carefully  keeping  the  more  painful  part  out  of  sight,  as 
the  priests  in  Mexico  rung  the  gong  to  drown  the  cries  of  the 
human  victims  offered  in  sacrifice. 

From  these  two,  and  it  may  be  from  other  causes,  we  find  the 
conscience  operating  in  a  number  of  perverted  ways  in  the 
human  breast. 

First,  there  is  an  unenlightened  conscience.  The  mind 
makes  no  inquiry  into  the  objects  presented  to  it ;  but  taking 
them  as  they  come,  the  conscience  decides  upon  them  as  they 
cast  up.  Persons  under  this  influence  act  according  to  the 
prevailing  views  of  their  age  and  country,  without  making  any 
nice  inquiry  into  their  accuracy.  They  follow  religiously  the 
superstitions  of  their  country  ;  they  practise  faithfully  the  virtues 
of  their  family  or  tribe — be  they  hospitality,  or  courage,  or 
whatever  else  ;  and  they  allow  themselves  to  fall  into  the  vices 
that  abound  around  them — it  raay  be  intemperance  or  revenge — 
and  they  scarcely  feel  any  compunctions  in  consequence.  It  is 
the  least  sinful  form  which  the  conscience  takes  in  fallen  man. 
Yet  it  is  not  without  sin.  The  mind  avoids  inquiry,  because  it 
*  Bishop  Reynolds  on  the  Affections. 


384  STATE  OF  THE  CONSCIENCE  IN 

does  not  wish  to  be  disturbed.  It  is  in  darkness,  because  it 
prefers  the  darkness  to  the  light.  The  conscience,  in  such 
persons,  loses  all  delicacy  of  perception  and  touch ;  and  the 
possessor  does  good  without  doing  it  as  good,  and  evil  without 
knowing  that  it  is  evil. 

Secondly,  there  is  a  perverted  conscience.  This  form 
differs  from  the  other  only  in  degree.  It  is  a  farther  stage  of 
the  same  malady.  There  is  now  not  only  ignorance,  there  is 
positive  mistake.  Nor  is  it  difficult,  proceeding  on  the  principles 
above  developed,  to  discover  how  the  conscience  should  come  to 
pronounce  judgments  which  are  positively  erroneous.  Under  the 
influence  of  prejudice  and  passion,  the  mind  views  every  object 
only  under  some  one,  and  that  a  very  partial,  aspect.  Objects 
really  loved  on  other  grounds  come  in  imagination  to  be  invested 
with  qualities  which  do  not  belong  to  them  ;  and  we  are  led, 
not  only  to  desire,  but  to  justify  ourselves  in  desiring  them. 
Men  will  fight  for  persons  and  causes  altogether  unworthy  of 
esteem,  because  they  identify  them  with  something  that  is  good, 
and  they  will  do  so  with  unflinching  fidelity  and  the  deepest 
devotedness,  thinking  that  they  do  God  service.  On  the  other 
hand,  when  they  are  under  the  feeling  of  malice  or  revenge, 
all  the  actions  of  the  obnoxious  party  will  be  seen  as  through 
broken  and  coloured  crystal.  "  It  would  be  curious  to  see  how  a 
respectful  estimate  of  a  man's  character  and  talents  might  be 
changed,  in  consequence  of  some  personal  inattention  experi- 
enced from  him,  into  deprecating  invectives  against  him  or  his 
intellectual  performances  ;  and  the  railer,  though  actuated  solely 
by  petty  revenge,  account  himself  all  the  while  the  model  of 
equity  and  sound  judgment."*  Having  succeeded  in  represent- 
ing those  whom  we  dislike  in  jaundiced  colours  and  distorted 
forms,  we  feel  as  if  we  were  not  only  allowed,  but  justified,  in 
the  opposition  offered  them.  Malignity  never  becomes  deep  or 
bitter,  till  it  has  succeeded  in  calling  in  the  conscience  ;  and  men 
feel  as  if  they  did  right  to  be  angry.  Mankind  always  misre- 
present those  whom  they  hate,  as  Nero  clothed  with  the  skins  of 
wild  beasts  those  on  whom  he  let  loose  the  dogs  that  tore  them 
to  pieces,  and  covered  with  pitch  those  that  were  consumed  by 
the  flames. 

In  consequence  of  these  aberrations,  willing  in  the  first  in- 
*  Foster  on  a  Man's  Writing  Memoirs  of  Himself. 


THE  DEPRAVED  NATURE.  385 

stance,  the  mind  lapses  into  a  hopelessly  perverted  state,  calling 
good  evil,  and  evil  good.  A  deep  but  somewhat  gloomy  thinker, 
John  Foster,  says,  "  It  were  probably  absurd  to  expect  that  any 
mind  should  itself  be  able  to  detect  all  its  own  obliquities,  after 
having  been  so  long  beguiled,  like  the  mariners  in  a  story  which 
I  have  read,  who  followed  the  direction  of  their  compass,  infal- 
libly right,  as  they  could  have  no  doubt,  till  they  arrived  at  an 
enemy's  port,  where  they  were  seized  and  made  slaves.  It  hap- 
pened that  the  wicked  captain,  in  order  to  betray  the  ship,  had 
concealed  a  large  loadstone  at  a  little  distance  on  one  side  of  the 
needle."*  The  illustration  is  most  apposite  of  the  constant 
power  of  a  sinful  will,  like  this  concealed  loadstone,  to  draw 
aside  the  conscience  from  its  proper  bearing,  and  to  lead  the 
possessor  astray  while  he  thinks  he  is  holding  on  in  the  right 
direction. 

We  can  thus  account  for  the  extraordinary  perversions  of 
moral  feeling  by  which  certain  religious  sects  are  characterized. 
The  delusion  caused  in  individuals  by  their  personal  idiosyncrasy, 
or  the  influence  of  accidental  circumstances,  is  produced  in  these 
sects  by  a  skilfully  arranged  system,  the  prime  movers  in  which 
deceive  others  by  the  same  means  by  which  they  were  themselves 
deceived.  In  all  such  cases  it  may  be  remarked,  that  there  are 
two  necessary  means  employed — there  is  an  acknowledged  virtue 
placed  on  the  foreground  before  the  mind,  and  there  is  a  course 
of  training.  By  this  virtue  the  moral  faculty  is  gained  ;  and  by 
the  training,  the  mind  is  taught  to  look  at  this  virtue,  and  to  the 
advantages  flowing  from  its  exercise,  while  other  and  offensive 
aspects  are  studiously  kept  out  of  view.  Thus,  in  the  Society  of 
Jesus  there  are  placed  before  the  mind  the  duty  of  serving  Christ, 
the  virtue  of  submission  to  a  superior,  and  the  advantages  thence 
accruing  of  centralization,  and  the  energy  of  united  action  ;  and 
then  there  is  a  system  of  discipline,  with  a  studious  secrecy,  and 
disclosures  according  as  the  parties  are  able  to  bear  them.  In 
Thuggery,  it  was  proclaimed  that  the  sacrifice  of  human  life  is 
sacred  to  the  Goddess  of  Destruction,  and  that  the  strangled  go 
to  Paradise,  and  none  were  allowed  to  witness  the  horrid  rites 
till  the  third  year  of  their  apprenticeship. 

These  are  the  workings  of  the  conscience,  in  regard  to  its  more 
direct  office  of  pointing  out  the  path  of  duty.     In  its  more  re- 
*  Foster  on  a  Man's  Writing  Memoirs  of  Himself. 
2  B 


386  STATE  OF  THE  CONSCIENCE  IN 

flex  operation,  as  judging  of  the  past  character  of  the  possessor, 
it  may  assume  one  or  other  of  two  forms,  as — 

Thirdly,  there  is  an  unfaithful  conscience,  or  a  conscience 
which  does  not  inform  man  of  his  sins.  It  is  the  most  dangerous 
of  all  its  delusions.  It  arises  from  the  painful  nature  of  the 
emotions  which  the  contemplation  of  sin  calls  up,  and  the  effort 
which  the  mind  makes  to  avoid  or  deaden  the  sensation.  Hence 
the  unwillingness  to  look  seriously  at  the  evil  committed  ;  hence 
the  attempt  to  keep  it  out  of  sight,  and  to  bury  it,  if  possible, 
in  forgetfulness.  There  issue  from  all  this  a  deceitfulness  of 
heart,  and  a  cast  of  character  completely  opposed  to  that  which 
we  describe  expressively  as  single-minded.  These  self-delusions 
may  be  observed  not  only  in  those  who  are  possessed  of  superior 
abilities  and  great  acuteness,  but  even  in  clowns  and  simpletons. 
Those  who  have  no  other  talent  are  often  proverbial  for  the 
exercise  of  a  kind  of  cunning  which  displays  itself  in  hiding 
their  faults  from  others,  and  which  is  derived,  we  are  convinced, 
from  the  skill  which  they  have  acquired  in  deluding  them- 
selves. Persons  who  have  long  practised  this  habit  of  self- 
deception  come  at  last  to  look  upon  themselves  with  the  most 
complacent  self-satisfaction.  The  greatest  criminals  have  been 
known  to  pass  years  of  their  life  without  being  visited  with 
auy  very  deep  or  conscious  convictions  of  conscience.  If  certain 
persons  can  thus  commit  the  most  heinous  crimes  without 
being  much  troubled  with  the  consciousness  of  sin,  it  is 
worthy  of  being  inquired  whether  it  is  not  in  consequence  of 
a  general  property  of  man's  nature  operating  in  the  breasts 
of  all,  and  leading  them  to  conceal  their  sins  from  themselves. 
Does  it  not  seem  as  if,  through  this  human  characteristic, 
all  mankind  might  be  sinners,  and  lying  under  the  displeasure 
of  God,  while  yet  utterly  unconscious  of  their  awful  and  peril- 
ous state  ? 

The  great  body  of  mankind,  in  ordinary  circumstances,  are 
wonderfully  little  troubled  with  reproaches  of  conscience — as 
little,  we  believe,  as  the  Jesuit  is  in  practising  deceit,  and  the 
Thug  in  perpetrating  his  murders,  and  for  a  like  reason — the 
conscience  has  been  so  muffled  that  no  warning  sound  can  come 
from  it.  Some  have  gone  down  to  yet  greater  depths,  far 
beneath  the  reach  of  any  disturbing  sound — like  those  depths 
of  the  ocean  which  are  beneath  all  agitation,  but  in  which  there 


THE  DEPRAVED  NATURE.  387 

is  no  life — like  those  coal-pits  into  which  it  is  impossible  to 
draw  the  air,  and  in  which  all  life  must  perish. 

Fourthly,  there  is  a  troubled  conscience.  Southey,  in 
one  of  his  poems,  tells  us  of  a  bell — which  had  been  suspended 
on  a  rock,  that  the  sound  given  as  the  waves  beat  upon  it  might 
warn  the  mariner  of  the  propinquity  to  danger — having  had  its 
rope  cut  by  pirates,  because  of  the  warning  which  it  uttered.  It 
so  happened,  however,  that  at  a  future  period  these  very  pirates 
struck  upon  that  rock  which  they  had  strip t  of  its  means  of  ad- 
monishing them.  Which  things  may  be  unto  us  for  an  allegory. 
Mankind  take  pains  to  stifle  the  voice  that  would  admonish 
them,  and  they  partially  succeed,  but  it  is  only  to  find  them- 
selves sinking  at  last  in  misery  thereby  more  fearfully  augmented. 

There  are  violent  and  convulsive  movements  of  self-reproach 
which  will  at  times  break  in  upon  the  self-satisfaction  of  the 
most  complacent.  Man's  peace  is  in  this  respect  like  the  sultry 
heat  of  a  summer's  day  ;  it  is  close  and  disagreeable  at  the  time, 
and  ever  liable  to  be  broken  in  upon  by  the  thunders  and  tem- 
pests of  the  Divine  indignation.  Even  in  the  case  of  those  who 
are  anxious  to  keep  their  attention  turned  away  as  much  as  pos- 
sible from  themselves,  and  as  little  as  possible  upon  the  state  of 
their  hearts,  there  will  occur  intervals  unfilled  up  between  the 
scenes  that  engross  them,  and  on  these  occasions  there  will  be 
recollections  called  up  which  occasion  the  keenest  misery.  It 
may  be  after  a  day  of  selfish  business,  or  an  evening  of  sinful 
excitement,  that  such  unwelcome  visitations  are  paid  to  them  to 
disturb  their  rest,  while  others  have  buried  their  cares  in  the 
forgetfulness  of  sleep.  Or  it  may  be,  in  the  time  of  disease,  or 
in  the  prospect  of  death,  that  the  ghosts  of  deeds  committed 
long  ago  spring  up  as  from  the  grave.  These  gloomy  fears  pro- 
ceeding from  conscious  guilt  always  rise  up  like  a  ghostly  appa- 
rition, never  in  the  sunshine  of  prosperity,  but  always  in  the 
gloom  of  adversity,  to  render  the  darkness  more  horrific.  The 
wicked  are  thus,  in  the  time  of  prosperity,  heaping  up  accumu- 
lated sorrow,  to  aggravate  the  scenes  of  misery  through  which 
they  must  at  last  pass.  They  are  vainly  attempting  to  stop  the 
current  altogether  by  a  feeble  mound,  which,  as  it  gives  way, 
lets  in  the  deep  waters  upon  the  soul  with  the  power  of  an  over- 
whelming flood. 

A  number  of  circumstances  combine  to  force  sin  upon  the 


388  STATE  OF  THE  CONSCIENCE  IN 

notice,  even  when  there  is  a  general  desire  to  overlook  it.  Ex- 
ternal objects  and  events  may  frequently  make  it  pass  in  review 
before  the  spectator.  More  commonly  it  is  excited  feeling  that 
fixes  it  constantly  before  the  mind,  so  that,  turn  itself  as  it  may, 
it  ever  sees  the  deed  standing  out  in  colours  of  flame,  like  a 
lurid  light  glaring  in  the  midst  of  darkness,  and  attracting  the 
eye,  though  only  to  pain  and  annoy  it.  A  crime  long  concealed 
from  the  public  gaze  has  at  length,  let  us  suppose,  been  detected, 
the  indignation  of  the  whole  community  is  excited,  and  the 
finger  of  reproach  is  pointed  at  the  perpetrator.  It  is  manifest, 
that  he  cannot  now  banish  the  recollection  of  the  offence  so  con- 
stantly or  effectually  as  he  was  wont.  It  will  rise  up  anew  with 
every  feeling  of  wounded  vanity,  and  whenever  he  is  exposed  to 
studied  neglect  or  insult.  We  can  account,  on  precisely  the 
same  principles,  for  a  seemingly  contradictory  phenomenon — the 
great  annoyance  given  by  the  conscience  in  cases  in  which  con- 
stant exertion  requires  to  be  made  to  keep  the  crime  concealed. 
The  very  attempt  at  concealment,  according  to  the  natural  law 
of  association,  must  keep  the  deed  perpetually  before  the  mind, 
to  awaken  the  conscience  and  madden  the  soul.  The  man  who 
has  such  a  fearful  secret  to  keep  has  a  fire  in  his  bosom  which 
he  is  "  gathering  to  keep  it  warm  ;"  and  he  would  not  be  lacer- 
ated by  the  lash  of  public  reprobation  so  fearfully  as  by  these 
scorpions  of  his  own  exasperated  conscience.  The  sin  is  also 
kept  before  the  mind,  and  the  conscience  troubled,  when  there 
is  any  circumstance  connected  with  the  commission  of  the  sin 
which  is  fitted  to  excite  the  social  and  sympathetic  emotions. 
When  the  shrieks  of  the  murdered,  for  instance,  ring  for  years 
in  the  ears  of  the  murderer,  the  mind  cannot  but  be  in  a  state 
of  constant  restlessness — the  burning  centre  of  the  most  intense 
anguish. 

In  other  cases,  the  troubling  of  the  conscience  is  produced,  we 
can  scarcely  tell  how,  by  the  state  of  the  nervous  system,  or  by 
an  accidental  event,  recalling  the  deed  committed  to  oblivion,  or 
by  a  sudden  flashing  of  some  willingly  forgotten  scene  upon  the 
mind,  revealing,  like  the  lightning's  glare  at  night,  dreadful 
depths  of  darkness.  In  regard  to  such  phenomena,  we  may 
know  what  arc  the  general  laws  ;  though  it  may  be  as  difficult 
to  condescend  upon  the  specific  causes,  as  it  is  to  tell  the  imme- 
diate  cause  of  the  raising  this  gust  of  wind,  or  of  this  cloudy 


THE  DEPRAVED  NATURE.  389 

atmosphere,  of  both  of  which  we  may  know  perfectly  what  are 
the  general  means  of  their  production. 

The  swelling  of  the  passions  has  often  been  compared  very 
appropriately  to  that  of  the  waves  of  the  ocean.  The  reproaches 
of  conscience  bear  a  greater  resemblance  to  the  ground  sweU, 
thus  described  by  an  eloquent  scientific  female  writer  : — "  It 
continues  to  heave  the  smooth  and  glassy  surface  of  the  deep, 
long  after  the  winds  and  billows  are  at  rest.  A  swell  frequently 
comes  from  a  quarter  in  direct  opposition  to  the  wind,  and 
sometimes  from  various  points  of  the  compass  at  the  same  time, 
producing  a  vast  commotion  in  a  dead  sea  without  ruffling  the 
surface.  They  are  the  heralds  that  point  out  to  the  mariner  the 
distant  region  where  the  tempest  has  howled,  and  they  are  not 
unfrequently  the  harbingers  of  its  approach."*  Every  word  of 
this  description  might  be  applied  to  those  reproaches,  which, 
coming  from  various  quarters,  and  rising  at  a  great  distance, 
move  the  soul  far  beneath  the  surface,  and  tell  at  once  of  sin 
that  may  be  long  past,  and  of  storms  yet  to  arise. 

Sometimes  these  reproaches  are  but  momentary  flashes,  extin- 
guished in  darkness  ;  at  other  times  they  are  a  constant  firing. 
Human  misery  is  consummated,  when  the  gnawings  become 
constant,  eating  like  a  cancer  ever  inwards.  The  memory  of  sin 
is  now  the  only  object  on  which  the  mind  can  fix.  The  con- 
science unceasingly  chides,  and  all  its  chidings  are  prolonged  and 
repeated,  as  by  surrounding  echoes.  An  avenging  power  is  seen 
ever  hovering  over  the  soul,  like  a  bird  of  prey  over  its  victim. 
Who  can  describe  to  others  the  pain  produced,  when  these  con- 
victions coil  around  the  mind  as  serpents  coiled  around  Lao- 
coon  ?  Nor  can  any  change  of  scene  or  position  lessen  or  distract 
the  misery.  You  may  recommend  scenes  of  mirth  and  amuse- 
ment ;  but  their  very  music  grates  upon  the  ear,  and  is  as  the 
"  singing  of  songs  to  a  heavy  heart."  You  may  recommend  the 
beauties  of  nature — the  bracing  breeze,  and  the  gladdening  sun- 
shine— the  stream,  fitted  to  make  the  heart  to  leap  as  lively  as 
itself — the  mountain,  whose  air  becomes  purer  and  more  ethereal 
as  we  rise  higher  and  higher,  elevating  the  spirits  as  we  ascend, 
and  expanding  the  mind  as  the  prospect  widens — or  the  ocean, 
the  sight  and  sound  of  which  are  ever  as  fresh  to  the  exhausted 
spirit  as  the  breeze  which  blows  from  it  is  to  the  exhausted  body ; 

*  Sommerville's  Physical  Geography. 


390  RESTRAINTS  LAID  UPON  MAN 

but  it  is  all  to  no  purpose  ;  for  when  there  is  music  in  the  ear, 
there  is  discord  in  the  heart — when  there  is  glad  sunshine  with- 
out, there  is  darkness  within. 

It  is  the  world  within  that  needs  to  be  rectified,  and  then  it 
will  gladden  the  world  without,  as  by  a  perpetual  sunshine 
streaming  upon  it.  But  this  rectification  must  proceed  from  a 
higher  power  than  the  perverted  mind  of  man. 

SECT.  VII. — RESTRAINTS  LAID  UPON  MAN  BY  THE  CONSCIENCE — 
THEIR  EXTENT  AND  CHARACTER. 

Though  man  is  fallen,  there  is  abundant  scope  for  the  exer- 
cise of  many  of  the  original  properties  of  his  nature.  Every  one 
acknowledges,  for  instance,  that  there  is  room  for  the  play  of  the 
ingenuity  and  fancy  in  man's  existing  nature,  and  that  the  sym- 
pathetic and  social  affections  may  be  as  strong  and  lively  as  ever. 
We  maintain,  farther,  that  in  not  a  few  cases,  the  conscience  is 
making  its  power  felt  in  the  way  of  instigating  to  what  is  good, 
and  restraining  from  what  is  evil.  It  cannot  be  denied,  that 
great  and  beneficial  ends  are  produced  in  the  government  of  the 
world  by  the  exercise  of  this  faculty,  weak  and  imperfect  though 
it  be.  But  let  us  properly  understand  in  what  sense,  and  under 
what  restrictions,  the  admission  is  made. 

The  possession  of  conscience  does  not  make  any  man  morally 
good,  but  it  undoubtedly  renders  every  man  a  responsible  agent. 
It  would  be  an  evident  error  to  affirm,  that  if  man  were  without 
a  conscience,  he  would  commit  a  greater  amount  of  wickedness  ; 
for,  so  constituted,  he  could  be  as  little  capable  of  moral  evil  as 
of  moral  excellence.  But  if  we  cannot,  with  any  propriety  of 
language,  affirm,  that  without  the  possession  of  the  conscience, 
human  wickedness  would  have  been  greater  than  it  is  ;  it  is  per- 
fectly competent  to  assert  that,  without  such  a  restraint,  human 
passion  would  have  raged  more  furiously,  and  that  the  human 
misery  produced  would  have  been  vastly  more  extensive.  The 
conscience,  weak  and  perverted  though  it  be,  is  one  instrument 
employed  by  God  to  hold  mankind  in  subjection  in  spite  of  their 
wickedness.  Bacon  speaks  of  it  as  "  sufficient  to  check  the  vice, 
but  not  to  inform  the  duty."  Though  chained  like  the  watch- 
dog, it  does,  at  least  at  times,  give  warning  of  danger.  This 
broken  rudder  is  not  capable  of  conducting  the  vessel  into  the 


BY  THE  CONSCIENCE.  391 

harbour  ;  but  may  be  used  for  preventing  it,  till  certain  ends 
have  been  accomplished,  from  dashing  upon  the  rocks.  (t  We 
believe,"  says  Vinet,  "  in  the  wreck  of  humanity  ;  we  believe 
that  its  unfortunate  ship  has  perished,  but  that  the  remains  of 
that  great  catastrophe  float  on  the  waves.  A  few  of  these  are 
fit  for  some  use,  but  none  of  them  can  bear  to  the  shore  the 
least  of  the  passengers." 

In  many  cases,  there  is  direct  obedience,  not  indeed  full  and 
constant,  but  partial  and  occasional,  to  the  dictates  of  the  con- 
science. Let  it  be  acknowledged  frankly,  and  without  any  mental 
reservation  whatsoever,  that  there  is  in  society  much  sterling 
honesty,  proceeding  from  conscientious  integrity  of  character, 
and  not  from  any  discovery  of  the  advantages  which  may  spring 
from  the  course  of  conduct  pursued.  Not  only  so,  there  is  in 
many  a  high  sense  of  honour,  and  a  noble-minded  generosity  of 
character,  originating  in  a  largeness  of  heart,  and  guided  by  an 
acute  sense  of  right  and  wrong,  which  command  our  esteem  and 
admiration.  We  always  suspect  the  man  who  sneers  at  the  idea 
of  the  existence  of  human  integrity  and  benevolence,  that  he  is 
himself  the  villain  which  he  believes  others  to  be.  Now,  it  needs 
but  a  moment's  reflection  to  discover,  how  much  the  peace  and 
general  wellbeing  of  society  are  promoted  by  the  belief  in  this 
high  honour  and  disinterested  philanthropy.  Though  society 
could  be  held  together  in  a  sort  of  way  by  the  restraints  of  God's 
providence,  it  would  be  a  sad  scene  of  constant  jealousy,  without 
the  mutual  confidence  engendered  by  sterling  honour  and  gene- 
rous love. 

But  while  it  is  freely  admitted  that  the  peace  and  decorum  of 
society  are  thereby  greatly  furthered,  we  are  not  therefore  to 
conclude  that  human  nature  is  spotlessly  pure.  The  disorgani- 
zation of  the  mind  may  be  discovered  in  the  very  character 
of  the  restraints  which  the  conscience  imposes.  There  is  a 
favouritism  displayed  where  all  may  seem  to  be  candour,  and  the 
partiality  of  the  judge  comes  out  in  the  selection  of  the  cases  in 
which  a  righteous  judgment  is  pronounced. 

Let  us  mark  the  peculiarities  of  those  cases  in  which  the  con- 
science is  in  the  way  of  controlling  the  mind,  and  directing  it 
aright.  As  a  general  rule,  it  is  most  disposed  to  do  so  when  the 
sin,  after  commission,  ivould  be  forced  most  readily  and  fre- 
quently upon  the  cognizance  of  the  conscience.     As  for  instance — 


392  RESTRAINTS  LAID  UPON  MAN 

First,  when  it  is  hnoivn  that  external  circumstances  must 
force  the  sin  upon  the  attention.  Mankind  in  general  avoid 
those  sins  which  after  commission  must  be  constantly  recalled 
by  events  ever  occurring.  Nor  is  there  need  of  any  profound 
reasoning  to  discover  what  sins  must  thus  bring  so  immediate  a 
punishment — the  mind  discovers  them  at  once,  and  flees  from 
them  as  naturally  and  spontaneously  as  it  would  from  a  preci- 
pice  or  any  manifest  bodily  peril.  It  is  in  consequence  of  this 
salutary  awe  that  we  find  external  sins  avoided  by  persons  who 
meanwhile  cherish  the  sinful  feeling  and  purpose.  Lewd 
thoughts,  malice,  and  revenge,  are  mentally  indulged  by  thou- 
sands who  refrain  from  perpetrating  the  corresponding  deed,  and 
this  not  merely  from  a  perception  of  the  reproach  with  which 
they  would  be  visited  by  their  fellow-men  upon  the  act  becom- 
ing manifest,  but  because  of  the  chiding  of  their  own  hearts, 
called  up  by  the  public  notice  taken  of  them.  Hence  it  is,  like- 
wise, that  there  is  commonly  a  restraint  on  those  sins  which  call 
forth  instantly  the  reprobation  of  society.  But  those  offences 
are  most  keenly  condemned  which  inflict  immediate  injury  on 
the  temporal  interests  of  mankind.  Deceit  and  dishonesty,  and 
the  kindred  vices,  are  those  which  are  most  deeply  felt  by  so- 
ciety as  inflicting  the  greatest  amount  of  injury,  and  these  are 
the  vices  which  the  wise  and  prudent  man  is  most  disposed  to 
avoid.  Hence  the  straightforward  honesty  and  sensitive  honour 
so  characteristic  of  our  higher  class  of  men  of  business.  It 
would  be  altogether  a  miserable  fetch  to  impute  this,  their  dis- 
tinguishing quality,  to  a  mere  refinement  of  selfishness — it 
proceeds  rather  from  a  becoming  fear  of  the  accusations  of  a 
conscientious  mind. 

It  is  for  a  like  reason  that  we  find  the  general  tone  of  morality 
in  society  exercising  a  powerful  influence  on  the  individual  mem- 
bers of  it.  When  the  standard  of  honour  and  virtue  is  high  in 
a  community — when,  for  instance,  unbecoming  levity  in  the 
female  sex,  and  everything  mean  on  the  part  of  the  higher 
classes  of  society  are  severely  reprobated,  when  industry  and 
honesty  are  commended  among  the  poor — then  we  find  a  shrink- 
ing from  all  those  violations  of  established  propriety  which  would 
expose  the  individual  not  only  to  the  scorn  of  men's  tongues, 
but,  along  with  that,  to  what  is  more  fearful,  the  gnawings  of  a 
dissatisfied  mind.     On  the  other  hand,  when  the  standard  of  so- 


BY  THE  CONSCIENCE.  393 

ciety  is  low — when  no  mark  of  disgrace  is  attached  to  unchastity, 
to  meanness  or  to  dishonesty — we  find  persons  falling  greedily 
into  these  sins,  and  contriving  easily  to  avoid  the  reproaches  of 
conscience.  A  member  of  a  community  of  robbers  or  pirates 
can,  with  comparatively  little  self-reproach,  inflict  injury  on 
society  at  large  every  day  of  his  life,  and  his  compunctions 
become  acute  only  when  he  is  tempted  to  act  unfaithfully  to- 
wards that  band  with  which  he  is  associated.  Hence  we  find 
criminals  perpetrating  without  much  remorse  the  most  enormous 
crimes  against  mankind  at  large,  and  yet  maintaining  a  nice 
sense  of  honour  in  reference  to  one  another.  This,  too,  is  a 
cause  (additional  to  that  before  noticed)  of  the  circumstance 
that  mankind  in  general  are  upright  in  their  transactions  with 
one  another,  while  they  are  utterly  ungrateful  and  rebellious  in 
their  conduct  towards  God,  their  governor  and  best  benefactor. 
Must  there  not  be  some  fearful  derangement  in  man's  nature 
when  sins  are  weighed,  not  in  the  unchangeable  scale  of  God's 
law,  but  the  varying  scale  of  ever-shifting  circumstances  ? 

Secondly  J  sins  are  avoided  when  the  social  and  sympathetic 
feelings  of  man's  nature  tend  to  recall  them  frequently  and 
vividly.  The  feelings  referred  to  will  fall  to  be  considered  in 
the  next  chapter.  They  are  in  themselves  different  from  the 
moral  feelings,  and  are  commonly  far  more  powerful,  owing  to 
their  liveliness  in  their  influence  upon  the  character.  They  must 
give  a  strong  bias  to  the  train  of  association  ;  and  whatever  sins 
rouse  them  into  operation,  must  of  necessity  be  much  before  the 
mind.  Hence  we  find  the  attention  dwelling  on  sins,  not  in 
proportion  to  their  greatness,  but  according  as  the  occurrence 
may  have  excited  and  interested  the  emotions.  Hence  we  find, 
in  all  minds  not  utterly  abandoned,  an  instinctive  shuddering  at 
crimes  which  produce  instantly  bodily  suffering  or  mental  an- 
guish, fitted  to  move  the  more  tender  feelings  of  man's  nature. 
It  is  owing  to  this  cause,  perhaps,  more  than  to  the  healthy 
working  of  the  conscience,  considered  in  itself,  that  we  find  the 
murderer,  the  seducer,  and  the  defrauder  of  the  simple,  haunted 
by  such  fearful  reproaches,  with  nothing  to  lessen  or  alleviate 
them.  We  can  believe  all  that  is  said  about  the  murderer  feel- 
ing as  if  the  stain  of  the  blood  of  his  victim  could  never  be 
washed  out,  and  as  if  he  saw  the  wounds  ever  open,  and  blood 
flowing  from  them.     It  is  pleasant  to  think  that  the  widow,  the 


394  RESTRAINTS  LAID  UPON  MAN  BY  THE  CONSCIENCE. 

orphan,  the  poor,  and  the  afflicted,  have  thus  a  powerful  friend, 
not  only  in  the  sympathetic  feelings  of  every  man's  bosom,  but 
in  the  moral  sense  called  up  by  these  feelings  to  the  discharge 
of  its  duties.  This  is  one  of  the  helps  which  God  provides  for 
the  helpless — one  of  the  most  potent  defences  of  the  defence- 
less. 

We  now  see  in  what  circumstances  the  conscience  is  apt  to 
be  deadened,  and  in  what  circumstances  it  is  apt  to  be  roused. 
We  see  how  mankind  can  continue  in  a  most  apathetic  state  in 
reference  to  sins  of  which  the  whole  race  is  guilty,  while  they 
are  sensitive  as  to  other  sins,  less  heinous,  it  may  be,  but  which 
are  generally  abhorred.  We  see,  too,  why  certain  sins  come  to 
weigh  heavily  on  the  mind,  while  others  are  speedily  forgotten. 

"  Great  crimes  alarm  the  conscience,  but  she  sleeps 
While  thoughtful  man  is  plausibly  amused." — Cowpek. 

The  great  crimes  which  alarm  the  conscience  are  commonly 
deeds  which  arouse  the  sympathies  or  startle  the  sensibilities  of 
mankind  ;  but  the  other  sins  which  he  forgets  are  those  which 
in  no  way  move  the  common  interests  of  humanity.  We  see 
likewise  how  sins,  forgotten  for  a  time,  may  be  made  to  flash 
before  the  mind  by  the  recalling  of  associated  circumstances,  or 
how  they  may  be  steadfastly  forced  upon  the  attention  by  the 
power  of  associated  feelings.  This  topic  will  fall  to  be  resumed 
in  next  section. 

But  in  considering  how  these  circumstances  bear  upon  the 
government  of  God,  it  is  worthy  of  being  noticed,  that  by  their 
means  God  can  effectually  restrain  the  vices  which  have  the 
most  pernicious  influence  upon  society.  In  proportion  as  society 
is  injured,  is  its  indignation  called  forth,  and  in  that  same  pro- 
portion is  the  conscience  roused  to  denounce  the  perpetrator  of 
the  evil ;  and  in  proportion  as  pain  is  inflicted,  so  are  the  sym- 
pathetic feelings  of  the  guilty  party  moved,  and,  in  awakening 
the  sympathies,  there  are  awakened,  at  the  same  time,  the  more 
terrible  pangs  of  an  accusing  conscience.  Does  it  not  seem  as  if 
God  were  using  the  very  wrecks  of  man's  nature  to  keep  him 
from  sinking  altogether,  and  making  the  sinfulness,  as  he  makes 
the  wrath,  of  man  to  praise  him  ? 


EVIL  EFFECTS  OF  A  CONDEMNING  CONSCIENCE.  395 


SECT.  VIII. — ON  THE  EVIL  EFFECTS  PRODUCED  BY  A  CONDEMNING 

CONSCIENCE. 

The  sad  effects  that  follow  from  a  falsely  approving  conscience, 
producing  a  self-deceived,  self-satisfied  temper  of  mind,  have 
already  been  pointed  out.  We  are  now  to  contemplate  the  evil 
effects  which  originate  in  a  condemning  conscience.  These  are 
greater  and  more  numerous  than  the  superficial  observer  is  apt 
to  imagine.  Their  source  lies  deep  down  in  the  human  heart, 
and  is  therefore  unseen,  but  is  on  that  account  the  more  tre- 
mendously powerful. 

We  are  inclined  to  refer  much  of  the  discontent  which  abounds 
in  the  world  to  the  influence  of  an  unsatisfied  conscience.  As 
repeated  neglects  of  duty  pass  under  the  notice  of  the  mind, 
there  is  a  wretchedness  ever  renewed,  though  very  possibly 
without  the  individual  being  at  all  aware  of  the  source  from 
which  it  springs.  In  this  respect  it  resembles  the  constant 
uneasiness  produced  by  the  derangement  of  the  digestive  organs, 
or  the  irritation  caused  by  a  diseased  nervous  system.  The  re- 
proaches of  the  conscience,  though  individually  transient,  exercise, 
by  their  recurrence,  a  powerful  influence.  They  resemble  those 
noxious  ephemera  which  make  up  in  number  what  they  want 
in  strength ;  and  while  the  individuals  perish,  the  species  sur- 
vives. By  their  constant  renewal  they  disturb  the  flow  of  asso- 
ciation in  the  mind,  and  dispose  it  to  anxiety  and  fretfulness. 
An  accusing  conscience  must  thus  ever  be  rendering  the  posses- 
sor restless  and  unhappy.  We  refer  to  this  cause  much  of  what 
we  call  temper,  both  of  peevish  and  violent  temper.  True,  the 
individual  may  not  know  the  quarter  from  which  the  restless- 
ness which  he  feels  proceeds — nay,  he  may  be  inclined  to  trace 
it  to  every  other  source  rather  than  the  true  one.  He  thinks 
that  it  arises  from  his  condition,  and  hence  his  constant  endea- 
vours to  better  his  position,  to  free  himself  from  certain  external 
inconveniences,  and  to  attain  certain  temporal  privileges ;  or  he 
refers  it  to  the  ill  usage  which  he  receives  from  mankind  in 
general,  or  from  certain  individuals  who  have  thwarted,  envied, 
or  insulted  him,  and  hence  his  irritability  or  the  obstinacy  of  his 
temper.  He  may  not  be  aware  of  it — nay,  he  might  scout  at 
the  idea,  if  propounded  to  him ;  but  nevertheless  it  is  certain 


396  ON  THE  EVIL  EFFECTS  PRODUCED 

that  the  spring  of  his  misery  is  to  be  found  in  a  conscience 
awakened  without  being  pacified. 

We  are  inclined  to  refer  not  only  much  of  human  misery,  but 
much  more  than  is  commonly  supposed,  of  human  sinfulness,  to 
the  working  of  an  evil  conscience.  Much  of  human  passion  and 
human  violence  is  the  fire  and  sound  emitted  by  nature  in  its 
effort  to  restore  a  deranged  equilibrium.  Alas  !  we  cannot  even 
understand  man's  wickedness,  under  some  of  its  forms,  without 
taking  into  account  the  existence  of  a  moral  sense.  It  is  possible 
for  the  conscience  to  become  a  deranging  instead  of  a  regulating 
power  ;  and  when  it  does  so,  it  becomes  the  most  corrupting  of 
all  agents,  even  as  water,  so  essential  to  all  living  vegetation, 
becomes  the  most  powerful  of  all  means  of  corruption  in  a  plant 
deprived  of  vitality. 

Whatever  rankles  the  mind — and  nothing  so  much  rankles  it 
as  an  unappeased  conscience — must  tend  to  keep  alive  the  worst 
feelings  of  the  heart.  The  fever  produced  will  prompt  to  anger, 
to  ambition,  and  to  every  passion  which  may  carry  away  the 
individual  from  himself,  or  absorb  him  in  strife  or  in  the  giddy 
whirl  of  business  or  pleasure.  And  there  are  times  when  the 
sleeping  volcano  will  burst  out  with  awful  and  irresistible  power. 
"A  wounded  spirit  who  can  bear  ?"  and  that  which  is  intoler- 
able within  will  find  vent  without.  When  the  mind  is  thrown 
into  a  tumult — when  it  is  tossed  from  the  lowest  depths — all 
that  is  impure  will  be  cast  up,  like  the  "  troubled  sea  when  it 
cannot  rest,  and  whose  waves  cast  up  mire  and  dirt."  Some  of 
the  direst  crimes  ever  committed  have  been  prompted  by  this 
laceration  of  spirit,  as  when  the  guilty  have  sought  to  rid  them- 
selves of  those  who  have  been  witnesses  of  their  crimes,  or  whose 
presence  told  them  of  their  guilt,  or  whose  lives  have  been  a 
reproach  upon  their  own.  Some  of  the  incidents  of  greatest 
horror  recorded  in  history  have  originated  in  the  aversion  of  the 
mind  to  the  near  contact  to  spotless  virtue.  The  Athenian  mob 
were  allowing  more  truth  to  escape  from  them  than  mankind 
are  accustomed  to  do,  when  they  gave  as  their  reason  for  banish- 
ing Aristides,  that  they  did  not  relish  the  constant  reference 
made  to  his  justice.  Not  a  few  of  the  murders  of  wives  by  their 
husbands,  and  of  husbands  by  their  wives,  have  sprung  from  a 
determination  to  be  rid  of  the  memorials  of  broken  vows.  We 
can  trace  to  no  other  source  than  a  conscience  goading  on  the 


BY  A  CONDEMNING  CONSCIENCE.  397 

passions,  the  demoniacal  deeds  which  have  been  committed 
around  the  martyr's  funeral  pile.  So  potent  is  this  principle, 
that  we  believe  it  capable  of  explaining  the  fearful  scenes  at  the 
foot  of  the  Cross,  where  the  meekest  of  sufferers  was  denied  the 
sympathy  which  has  not  been  withheld  at  a  dying  hour  even 
from  the  vilest  malefactor. 

If  we  would  understand  all  the  effects  which  follow  from  a 
condemning  conscience,  we  must  not  forget  that  the  passions  are 
often  irritated  and  inflamed  by  the  opposition  offered  to  them. 
It  is  proverbial  that  what  is  forbidden  is  apt  to  be  the  more 
eagerly  sought  after.  Nor  is  it  difficult  to  account  for  this.  The 
mind  under  the  influence  of  desire  dwells  on  the  prohibition  and 
the  thing  prohibited,  becomes  more  eagerly  bent  on  obtaining  it, 
and  chafes  at  the  denial.  The  effect  of  the  interposition  of  the 
conscience  in  such  circumstances  is  only  to  exasperate  the  mind  ; 
just  as  the  rocks  which  do  not  impede  the  stream  serve  to  dash 
it  into  greater  violence.  The  natural  effect  of  a  monitor  warning, 
without  being  attended  to,  must  be  an  increased  irritability  of 
spirit.  The  ocean,  even  when  the  waves  are  high,  never  seems 
to  rage  in  all  its  fury  except  at  the  shore,  where  it  is  opposed  by 
breakers  ;  the  deepest  stream  will  flow  along  softly,  and  almost 
imperceptibly,  till  it  meets  with  opposing  rocks  or  cliffs,  which 
dash  it  from  one  to  another,  when  it  is  forthwith  lashed  into 
foam  ;  and  it  is  from  a  like  cause  that  the  rebellious  temper  of 
man  rages  against  the  conscience,  when  it  would  lay  restraints 
upon  him.  Paul  seems  to  refer  to  this  power  of  an  awakened  con- 
science : — "  Sin,  taking  occasion  by  the  commandment,  wrought 
in  me  all  manner  of  concupiscence."  As  the  prisoner  will  tear 
his  chains,  and  beat  upon  his  prison  walls,  so  will  the  spirit  of 
man  fret  and  rage,  when  it  feels  its  fetters,  and  yet  is  not  able 
to  break  them.  It  is  the  wild  beast  beating  upon  its  cage,  and, 
indignant  at  every  restraint  upon  it,  becoming  more  furious  than 
when  it  ranged  in  the  forest.  Scourged  by  remorse,  there  are 
multitudes  who  have  sought  to  drown  their  pain  by  the  most 
frantic  movements.  Criminals  have  been  known,  with  the  view 
of  diverting  their  minds,  to  jest  even  upon  the  scaffold.  Others 
have  sought  to  madden  their  minds,  and  so  to  ease  their  feelings, 
by  rushing  into  unblushing  profligacy  and  daring  criminality, 
and  would  drown  the  remembrance  of  old  iniquities  by  the  noise 
which  new  ones  create. 


I 

398  ON  THE  EVIL  EFFECTS  PRODUCED 

In  other  cases,  the  mind  is  hardened  into  a  confirmed  rebellion 
against  God  and  all  that  is  good.  This  effect  follows,  whenever 
it  is  constrained  to  look  constantly  at  the  sins  of  which  it  yet 
does  not  repent. 

In  ordinary  circumstances  the  passions  of  the  soul,  by  means 
of  the  conspiracy  which  they  have  hatched,  contrive  to  deceive 
the  conscience,  but  they  will  not  always  be  so  successful.  Speak- 
ing of  the  conscience,  Bishop  Reynolds  says — "Though  in  many 
men  it  sleep  in  regard  to  motion,  yet  it  never  sleeps  in  regard 
to  observation  and  notice — it  may  be  heard  and  seared,  it  can 
never  be  blind.  That  writing  on  it,  which  seems  invisible  and 
illegible,  like  letters  written  with  the  juice  of  lemon,  when  it  is 
brought  to  the  fire  of  G-od's  judgments,  will  be  most  clear."* 
The  time  is  coming  when  the  mask  which  man  wears  will  be 
torn  off,  and  his  character  will  be  displayed  to  himself  in  all  its 
hideousness  and  deformity.  There  are  circumstances  occurring 
in  the  world  quite  sufficient  to  explain  what  is  here  meant. 

Let  us  look,  in  the  way  of  marking  the  operations  of  the  mind, 
at  those  persons  who  go  on  for  years  in  a  course  of  undetected 
sin,  but  who  are  afterwards  exposed.  There  is  a  servant,  let  us 
suppose,  cheating  his  master,  or  one  of  the  sex  in  which  chastity 
is  so  highly  valued  giving  way  to  an  unlawful  lust ;  we  are  to 
mark  the  state  of  mind  of  such  persons,  first,  when  the  sin  is  yet 
concealed,  and  then  when  it  comes  to  be  detected  and  published. 
Though  they  will,  no  doubt,  be  troubled  all  along  with  secret 
misgivings  and  reproaches,  it  is  astonishing  to  find  what  habitual 
calmness  they  may  assume — nay,  what  complacency  they  may 
feel,  at  least  if  they  have  no  difficulty  in  concealing  their  sins. 
After  the  first  awkwardness  has  been  conquered,  it  is  conceivable 
that  the  parties  may  feel  at  ease  in  the  very  presence  of  the 
master  deceived,  or  of  the  husband  to  whom  the  wife  has  proved 
unfaithful.  It  is  evident  that,  besides  a  studious  concealment 
from  the  eyes  of  others,  there  is  also  a  hiding  of  the  sin  from  the 
eyes  of  the  guilty  parties  themselves.  They  think  of  the  sinful 
deed  as  seldom  as  possible  ;  and  when  it  is  brought  before  the 
mind,  it  is  in  a  disguised  dress  and  appearance.  Society  will 
condemn  the  deed  when  known,  and  equally  certain  is  it  that 
the  conscience  will  condemn  it  every  time  it  is  presented.  If  the 
scorn  of  men  be  difficult  to  endure,  the  constant  gnawing  of 
*  Bishop  Reynolds  on  the  Affections. 


BY  A  CONDEMNING  CONSCIENCE.  399 

self-reproach  is,  if  possible,  still  more  intolerable.  Hence  the 
ingenious  stratagems  of  concealment  which  the  mind  is  ever 
plotting,  with  at  least  temporary  success.  The  person  acts  the 
hypocrite  to  himself,  and  uses  as  many  contrivances  to  save 
appearances  before  the  censor  within,  as  to  shield  himself  from 
the  criticisms  of  the  world  without. 

But  let  us  suppose  that  the  crime  is  now  discovered,  and  let 
us  mark  the  effect.  It  is  one  or  other  of  the  two  following : — 
the  person  is  humbled  and  grieved,  and  becomes  penitent  and 
reformed — or  more  commonly  the  result  is  the  very  opposite,  he 
becomes  hardened,  and  sets  the  opinion  of  mankind  at  defiance. 
When  this  latter  is  the  issue,  the  individual  from  that  instant 
becomes  more  open  and  unblushing  in  criminality.  He  acts  not 
only  in  contempt  of  the  opinion  of  society,  but  in  more  direct 
rebellion  against  the  dictates  of  conscience.  The  old  motives 
which  led  him  to  conceal  from  the  community  the  sins  which 
he  was  committing,  have  now  lost  their  force,  and  have  taken 
with  them  almost  all  his  old  methods  of  concealing  his  sins  from 
himself;  and  now  he  sins  not  only  more  openly,  but  more 
greedily  and  recklessly.  He  feels  like  the  gambler  who  has  lost 
at  one  venture  nearly  his  whole  property ;  he  thinks  he  may 
risk  the  remainder,  it  is  so  small.  This  is  the  feeling  of  the 
man  whom  crime  hath  deprived  of  peace  of  conscience  !  he  acts 
as  if  farther  crime  could  scarcely  make  him  more  wretched. 

It  seems  that  there  are  cataracts  in  the  descending  stream  of 
wickedness  at  which  the  fall  is  more  tremendous  than  at  other 
places.  Let  us  take  another  illustrative  case.  Let  us  trace  the 
descent  of  a  criminal  who  has  been  hardened  by  the  sentence 
pronounced  upon  him,  and  the  punishment  to  which  he  has  been 
subjected.  Let  us  mark  how  he  goes  down  step  by  step  in  the 
scale  of  being,  and  how  the  very  interferences  with  him  are  the 
means  of  hurrying  him  down  the  faster,  as  he  breaks  loose  from 
them — just  as  the  abutting  rocks  that  would  stop  the  rolling  stone 
are  often  the  means  of  making  it  take  a  more  tremendous  leap. 
Under  the  influence  of  some  transient  feeling,  not  without 
criminality,  a  youth,  we  shall  suppose,  is  tempted  to  engage  in 
some  night  foray  which  ends  in  pilfering,  and  he  is  in  conse- 
quence apprehended,  condemned,  and  subjected  to  confinement 
for  a  certain  length  of  time.  It  is  a  critical  period  in  his  history. 
Suppose  him  to  be  brought  to  true  repentance,  we  may  have 


400  ON  THE  EVIL  EFFECTS  PRODUCED 

from  this  time  a  life  of  persevering  integrity.  But  suppose,  on 
trie  other  hand,  that  he  is  led  to  spurn  at  the  sentence,  and 
endure  the  penalty  in  a  grumbling  spirit ;  from  that  date  there 
will,  in  all  probability,  be  a  succession  of  crimes  leading  to  a 
succession  of  condemnations,  and  the  whole  rendering  the  heart 
more  hardened  than  ever. 

Now,  the  issue  must  be  analogous,  in  regard  to  all  men,  When 
at  any  time  they  are  made  to  feel  deeply  and  solemnly,  be  it  in 
this  life  or  the  life  to  come,  that  God  is  calling  them  into  judg- 
ment. We  say  in  this  life,  because  there  are  times  in  the  history 
of  the  world,  and  in  the  history  of  every  individual,  when  God 
seems  to  be  setting  up  a  throne  of  judgment  on  the  earth,  and 
calling  men  before  it.  Certain  it  is,  that  every  man  must  at 
length  stand  before  the  Judge  of  the  universe.  When  thus 
summoned  into  the  presence  of  the  Judge  of  all,  it  must  be  for 
one  or  other  of  two  purposes — either  to  have  his  sins  forgiven,  or 
to  have  them  charged  upon  him.  In  the  former  case,  it  is  con- 
ceivable that,  with  the  sentence  of  condemnation  removed,  the 
heart,  without  any  violence  done  to  its  principles,  may  be  inclined 
to  submission  and  repentance.  Hence  the  appropriateness  of  the 
plan  of  salvation  revealed  in  the  gospel,  which  disarms  rebellion 
by  providing  a  free  forgiveness.  But  it  is  to  the  other  alterna- 
tive that  our  attention  is  at  present  called.  Man,  we  suppose,  is 
summoned  to  give  account  of  his  deeds  to  a  Judge  who  cannot 
possibly  be  deceived. 

Unable  to  justify  himself,  with  no  promise  of  forgiveness,  with 
no  disposition  to  repent,  the  natural  result  is  sulkiness  and  open 
rebellion.  Were  there  room  for  deception,  the  party  might  be 
prompted  to  excuse  or  lessen  his  sin ;  or  with  the  promise  of 
forgiveness,  he  might  be  disposed  at  least  to  profess  repentance, 
and  might  have  a  momentary  desire  to  practise  it.  But  if 
repentance  be  impossible  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  door  of  hope 
seem  to  be  shut  on  the  other,  every  principle  of  man's  nature 
will  drive  him  on  to  the  recklessness  which  proceeds  from  con- 
scious guilt  and  despair. 

Meanwhile  his  sin  will  stand  disclosed  before  him  in  all  its 
hideousness  and  with  nothing  to  conceal  it.  The  remembrance 
of  sin,  we  have  seen,  may  be  called  up  either  by  external  cir- 
cumstances, or  by  a  powerful  inward  feeling.  Both  of  these  now 
combine  to  keep  his  sin  before  him.     Why  am  I  so  situated  ?  is 


BY  A  CONDEMNING  CONSCIENCE.  401 


the  constant  inquiry  put.  Because  of  sin,  is  the  answer  uttered, 
as  it  were,  by  a  responsive  voice  from  our  own  bosoms.  And 
these  feelings  of  intense  anguish,  whence  come  they  ? — Because  of 
sin,  is  the  reply,  prolonged,  as  it  were,  by  subterranean  thunders. 
But  the  sentence  is  unnecessarily  severe.  Well,  let  me  consider 
why  it  is  inflicted.  Because  of  sin,  is  the  sound  heard,  as  coming 
with  awful  solemnity  from  heaven,  and  from  the  very  month  of 
the  Judge.  But  this  sin  is  not  so  great  after  all,  it  is  suggested. 
Well,  let  me  examine  it.  "  Here  is  a  sin,"  is  the  voice  coming 
from  one  quarter ;  "  Here  is  a  sin,"  is  the  voice  coming  from 
another  quarter ;  till  earth,  over  all  its  wide  surface,  joins  with 
heaven  and  hell  in  ringing  the  sound  of  sin  in  the  ear. 

The  insects  which  issue  from  an  ant-hill,  when  it  is  stirred,  are 
not  so  numerous  nor  fierce  as  the  eager  reproaches  which  come 
forth,  when  the  judgments  of  heaven  visit  the  spirit.  All  the 
scenes  of  the  past  life,  even  those  regarded  as  most  interesting 
at  the  time,  and  remembered  with  greatest  pleasure  ever  since, 
are  now  made  to  disclose  to  the  view  the  sin  involved  in  them, 
but  which  was  for  a  time  concealed  beneath  the  lovely  foliage 
on  which  the  eye  rested.  This  youthful  frolic,  which  once  com- 
municated such  pleasure  in  the  remembrance — ah  !  it  is  now 
seen  that  it  proceeded  from  vanity.  This  deed  of  generosity  to 
man — alas  !  it  was  accompanied  with  an  utter  contempt  of  God. 
Nor  was  Fitz-James  more  astonished,  when,  in  one  of  the  most 
magnificent,  and  seemingly  one  of  the  most  peaceful,  scenes  in 
nature,  there  sprung  up  an  armed  warrior  from  every  bush  and 
brake  and  hollow,  than  the  person  who  has  walked  through  life 
in  a  vain  show,  when  his  sins  at  last  start  up  before  him. 

"  Wild  as  the  scream  of  the  curlew 
From  crag  to  crag  the  signal  flew — 
Instant,  through  copse  and  heath,  arose 
Bonnets,  and  spears,  and  bended  bows  : 
On  right,  on  left,  above,  below, 
Sprung  up  at  once  the  lurking  foe ; 
From  shingles  grey  their  lances  start — 
The  bracken  bush  sends  forth  the  dart ; 
The  rushes  and  the  willow  wand 
Are  bristling  into  axe  and  brand; 
And  every  tuft  of  broom  gives  life 
To  plaided  warrior  arm'd  for  strife — 
As  if  the  yawning  hell  to  heaven 
A  subterranean  host  had  given." 
2  C 


402  ON  THE  EVIL  EFFECTS  PRODUCED 

All  of  us  who  have  experienced  anything  like  the  following 
may  comprehend  how  there  should  be  such  a  resurrection  of 
feeling.  Conceive  a  world-involved  man  taking  a  quiet  day,  in 
a  life  of  engrossing  business,  to  visit  the  scenes  of  his  childhood. 
The  house  in  which  he  was  reared — the  room  in  which  he  slept 
— the  field  in  which  he  played — the  garden  or  glen  in  which  he 
gathered  flowers — this  gnarled  oak,  and  that  sequestered  dell — 
have  all  an  attraction  to  him  which  they  have  to  no  other  ;  and 
their  attraction  arises  from  their  raising  recollections  of  scenes 
which  seemed  to  be  for  ever  lost,  but  which  were  vastly  inter- 
esting at  the  time,  as  they  are  still  interesting  in  the  gushing 
memory  of  them  as  they  well  up  from  the  mind  as  waters  from 
a  fountain.  Events  which  were  regarded  as  absolutely  buried 
are  made  to  spring  up  in  vivid  reality,  and  they  come  with  in- 
tense power  to  move  the  soul  to  mirth  or  melancholy.  It  is  an 
experimental  proof  of  the  possibility  of  the  resurrection  of 
buried  thoughts.  So  far  as  forgotten  sins  are  concerned,  the 
conscience  is  the  archangel's  trumpet,  whose  sound  raises  them 
from  the  graves  to  which  they  had  been  consigned,  in  the  hope 
that  they  might  dwell  in  perpetual  darkness ;  and  they  stand 
before  us  shivering  and  shaking,  calling  on  the  hills  to  cover 
them,  and  the  caves  to  hide  them — but  all  to  no  purpose,  for 
there  is  no  place  in  which  these  risen  ghosts  can  find  a  shelter, 
except  in  the  land  of  perpetual  darkness,  where  their  misery  is 
concealed,  though  not  lessened  or  remedied.  There  is  a  death 
for  the  soul,  but  there  is  no  grave  in  which  to  bury  it. 

But  will  the  mind  not  endeavour  still  to  conceal  the  guilt  from 
itself  ?  Most  assuredly  it  will,  but  in  a  new  way.  The  old 
methods  have  failed,  but  new  ones  will  present  themselves,  and 
be  eagerly  followed.  After  the  exposure  which  has  been  made, 
it  knows  that  it  cannot  conceal  inself  in  its  old  mantle  ;  it  must 
therefore  find  a  new  one,  which  if  not  so  fair  and  becoming,  nor 
adapted  for  concealment,  may  yet  be  harder  and  more  impene- 
trable, and  fitted  for  defence  ;  and  underneath  the  external  garb, 
when  it  is  torn  away,  there  will  be  found  a  coat  of  mail  for  pro- 
tection. The  man  cannot  now  flatter  himself  into  the  belief  that 
his  virtues  are  numerous  and  his  faults  few  ;  for,  as  he  stood  at 
the  bar  of  the  Judge,  he  got  a  view  of  his  character  in  all  its 
blackness  and  hideousness.  Still  he  cannot  bear  the  continual 
gnawings  of  that  condemning  conscience.     But  if  it  cannot  be 


BY  A  CONDEMNING  CONSCIENCE.  403 

silenced,  may  he  not  succeed  in  getting  beyond  the  reach  of  its 
voice  ?  Or  he  may  allow  other  feelings  to  hurry  him  along  till 
the  sound  no  longer  falls  upon  his  ear.  Such  feelings  will  rise 
up  spontaneously  in  the  mind,  under  the  irritation  produced  by 
the  condemning  sentence  of  the  judge  ;  and  if  these  feelings  of 
rage  and  disappointment  can  but  allow  the  mind  to  escape  the 
conscience,  they  will  be  willingly  followed.  Not  that  they  are 
felt  to  be  pleasant,  but  they  are  at  least  of  a  more  moving  and 
hurrying  character  than  those  which  oppress  the  spirit,  as  the 
conscience  utters  its  judgments,  and  admits  of  no  appeal.  If  they 
do  not  give  relief,  they  at  least  furnish  a  change  of  misery,  as  the 
man  racked  with  pain  on  all  sides  will  again  and  again  change  his 
posture,  were  it  only  to  vary  his  distress.  Tied,  like  Mazeppa, 
on  a  courser  over  which  he  has  no  control,  he  would  feel  a  kind 
of  ecstasy  in  the  very  wildness  of  its  careering.  Not  only  so,  but 
acquiring  courage  from  despair,  he  may  proceed  the  length  of 
making  war  with  the  judge.  Since  he  cannot  flee  from  him,  he 
will  perhaps  affect  to  contemn  him,  or  impugn  the  authority  of 
his  law. 

"  Souls  who  dare  look  the  omnipotent  tyrant  in 
His  everlasting  face,  and  tell  him  that 
His  evil  is  not  good." — Byron's  Cain. 

But  this  is  by  no  means  so  easy  a  work,  for  meanwhile  God 
has  a  witness  in  every  man's  bosom.  There  must  be  some  way 
of  deluding  this  witness  before  so  bold  a  step  can  be  taken.  The 
spirit  will  now  try  to  make  the  conscience  condemn  the  judge,  as 
being  harsh  and  relentless.  Strange  and  paradoxical  as  it  may 
appear,  it  will,  to  some  extent,  be  successful.  It  will  picture  to 
the  conscience  the  condemnation  pronounced,  as  a  dark  deed  of 
tyranny  and  revenge  committed  by  God ;  and  believing,  or 
trying  to  believe,  that  God  is  malignant,  it  will  view  Him  with 
the  feelings  which  malignity  should  inspire.  And  now  the  soul 
will  not  only  be  angry  with  God,  but  feel  as  if  it  did  right  to  be 
angry,  and  the  war  which  it  carries  on  will  not  only  be  that  of 
the  passions,  but  of  an  evil  conscience.  The  feelings  roused  will 
be  a  strange  mixture  of  heat  and  cold.  The  whole  soul  will,  as 
it  were,  be  travelling  constantly  from  "  beds  of  raging  fire  to 
starve  in  ice;"  and  there  will  be  found  in  it  such  extremes  as 
Sir  James  Boss  saw  in  those  lofty  mountains  near  the  south  pole, 
where  molten  lava,  with  a  glaring  light,  constantly  poured  itself 


404  ON  THE  EVIL  EFFECTS  PRODUCED 

on  eternal  snows.  The  war,  too,  will  now  be  incessant.  If  the 
war  were  merely  that  of  the  passions,  there  might  be  cessations 
and  gaps  and  intervals  ;  but  being  now  that  of  a  troubled  con- 
science, as  well  as  that  of  a  disordered  heart,  it  becomes  a  con- 
stant and  everlasting  warfare,  without  respite  and  without  end. 
Such  seems  to  be  the  necessary  issue  of  the  very  principles  in 
the  nature  of  responsible  beings.  It  is  conceivable,  then,  that 
there  may  be  beings,  angelic  beings,  who  wage  a  never-ceasing 
warfare  with  God,  urged  on  by  a  disordered  conscience,  and 
passions  which  have  broken  loose  from  all  restraint.  Man's 
reason  and  experience  cannot  tell  him  that  there  are  such  beings, 
but  they  show  that  there  may  be  such,  and  that  this  is  the 
natural  and — unless  Glod  miraculously  interpose — the  necessary 
result  of  the  fall  of  beings  who  have  a  moral  law  in  their 
hearts.  Every  one  can  understand  how  a  criminal,  repeatedly 
condemned  and  punished  by  an  earthly  judge,  becomes  hardened 
in  the  very  process.  This  phenomenon,  constantly  presented  in 
every  country,  is  the  natural  issue  of  principles  in  the  mind  of 
fallen  man.  But  these  same  principles,  on  the  condemnation 
being  pronounced  by  the  Judge  of  the  universe,  will  lead  to  a 
similar  result ;  and  just  as  we  find  that  those  who  have  once  been 
elevated  become  the  most  degraded  on  their  being  seduced  into 
crime  ;  just  as  we  find  the  most  abandoned  criminals  in  nations 
that  are  refined ;  so  we  may  expect  that  beings  who  stand  the 
highest  must  descend  the  lowest  when  they  fall — their  very  pre- 
vious exaltation  making  them  roll  the  farther  down.  Kevelation 
is  not,  then,  telling  us  of  an  impossibility,  in  announcing  that 
there  are  fallen  angels  ever  incited  by  restlessness  within,  to  try 
new  projects  of  wickedness,  were  it  only  to  vary  the  sameness  of 
their  misery  ;  ever  seeking  to  extract  a  bitter  consolation  from  the 
frustration  of  the  Divine  purposes  and  the  extension  of  vice  and 
misery,  and  to  drag  down  others  with  them  into  that  abyss  into 
which  they  have  been  plunged.  He  who  fell  by  pride,  may  surely 
now  be  expected  to  gratify  an  unruly  ambition  by  attempting  to 
multiply  the  restless  spirits  who  may  do  him  homage.  True  it  is 
that  every  apparent  victory  has  been  followed  by  overwhelming 
defeat ;  but  the  seeming  triumph  has  been  sufficient  to  goad  on 
that  spirit  which  has  nothing  to  hope  from  assumed  and  forced 
submission,  while  it  is  indisposed  to  genuine  repentance.  And 
we  have  only  to  look  to  man,  to  discover  that  propensities  to  evil 


BY  A  CONDEMNING  CONSCIENCE.  405 

rush  on  towards  their  objects,  regardless  of  consequences,  and  in 
contempt  of  all  experience.  It  seems  as  if  the  moral  being  who 
falls  must  fall  for  ever,  and  that  his  descent  must  be  a  rapidly 
accelerated  one,  the  termination  of  which  is  to  be  found  only  at 
the  bottom  of  a  pit  that  is  bottomless. 

Man  has  only  to  look  within  to  discover  principles  which 
might  bring  the  possessor  into  a  state  similar  to  that  of  fallen 
angels.  "  But  for  the  grace  of  God,  there  goes  Jolm  Bradford," 
was  the  exclamation  (often  quoted)  of  a  well-known  Keformer, 
as  he  saw  a  criminal  led  away  to  execution.  If  man  will  only 
look  into  his  own  heart  in  a  searching  manner,  he  may  discover 
principles  which,  in  some  of  their  possible  operations,  are  capable 
of  sinking  him  even  into  the  depths  of  demoniacal  wickedness. 
He  who  knows  his  own  nature  will  be  prepared  to  acknowledge 
that  the  contest,  of  which  poets  have  sung,  between  the  spirits 
of  evil  and  God,  are  at  least  possible.  Nay,  it  may  be  doubted, 
whether  such  poets  as  Milton  and  Byron  could  have  given  such 
a  painfully  graphic  anatomy  of  demoniacal  pride  and  passion, 
had  they  not  drawn  from  their  own  nature  ;  or  whether  we 
should  have  been  so  moved  by  the  description,  if  there  had  been 
nothing  responsive  in  our  own  bosoms. 

"  Thou  speak'st  to  me  of  things  which  long  have  swam 
In  visions  through  my  thought." — Byron's  Cain. 

Combining  these  considerations,  which  have  a  foundation  in 
the  principles  of  our  fallen  nature,  it  is  difficult  to  see  how,  if 
God  does  not  interpose,  man  can  stop  short  of  the  demoniacal 
state.  There  are  persons  who  wonder  that  man  should  be  con- 
signed to  the  place  prepared  for  the  devil  and  his  angels  ;  but 
when  he  has  acquired  the  character  of  the  devil  and  his  angels, 
in  what  place  can  he  so  appropriately  be  ? 

There  is  one  other  tendency  of  falling  humanity  to  which  it 
is  needful  to  attend.  We  would  call  it  the  drying  up  of  the 
natural  affections,  according  as  wickedness  increases,  and  the 
heart  becomes  rebellious. 

We  have  already  contemplated  one  striking  manifestation  of 
this  tendency,  in  the  natural  feeling  being  restrained  from  flow- 
ing towards  God,  from  the  very  instant  that  sin  was  committed. 
It  is  evidently  an  authentic  statement  that  is  given  of  the  con- 
duct of  our  first  parents,  when  they  are  represented,  after  their 
first  act  of  sin,  as  avoiding  the  presence  of  God.     They  did  not 


406  ON  THE  EVIL  EFFECTS  PRODUCED 

flee  from  one  another  ;  they  had  still  love  one  io  another  ;  but 
they  now  felt  the  presence  of  God  repulsive,  and  they  had 
already  ceased  to  love  him.  We  see  that  a  guilty  conscience  is 
capable  of  drying  up  one  stream  of  affection  ;  it  has  dried  up  the 
stream  of  love  that  flowed  towards  God.  In  the  affection  which 
man  lavishes,  God  is  the  exception  ;  it  would  seem  as  if  he  could 
love  everything  except  his  Maker. 

At  least  he  seems  capable  of  doing  so  in  the  earlier  stages  of 
his  career.  But  the  same  guilty  conscience  that  has  dried  up 
one  stream  can  dry  up  others.  Hence  the  prejudices  against 
certain  individuals — the  envy,  the  malice,  the  revenge  that  are 
to  be  found  in  the  world — these  are  not  original  parts  of  man's 
constitution,  but  acquisitions  made,  to  some  extent  at  least,  by 
a  guilty  conscience,  and  to  the  full  extent  by  the  conscience  ne- 
glecting to  exercise  its  legitimate  control. 

There  seems  to  be  an  impression  among  some,  that  if  con- 
science were  the  supreme  regulator  of  human  conduct,  it  would 
give  the  character  so  far  a  stern  and  forbidding  aspect,  by  pre- 
venting the  flow  of  human  affection.  But  this  proceeds  from  a 
mistaken  notion.  It  is  one  of  the  highest  offices  of  the  con- 
science, in  directing  all  the  principles  of  the  mind,  to  guide  in 
an  especial  manner  the  affections,  and  cause  them  to  flow  out, 
in  due  measure,  in  their  proper  channels.  The  instant  effect  of 
a  deranged  conscience  is  the  drying  up  of  one  of  the  streams — 
that  which  should  flow  towards  God  ;  and  the  drying  up  of 
other  streams  follows  in  the  progress  of  wickedness.  In  the 
deranged  nature  of  man,  the  fountains  of  the  affections,  which 
should  have  been  kept  pure  and  fresh,  are  first  allowed  to  be 
partially  choked  up  and  polluted,  then  the  waters  flow  in  per- 
verted channels,  and  finally  they  are  lost  altogether  in  the 
barren  sands  to  which  they  are  carried. 

In  this  downward  career  there  is  no  change  of  the  fundamen- 
tal principles  and  constituents  of  man's  nature  ;  yet  there  are 
sad  changes  of  personal  character.  There  are  numberless  ana- 
logies in  human  life  to  show,  that  there  may  be  a  change  of  the 
train  of  feelings  in  the  mind,  with  no  change  in  the  original 
faculties.  Look  first  at  this  sprightly  girl,  then  at  this  sober 
matron,  and  then  at  this  forlorn  widow  ;  it  is  the  same  person 
throughout,  but  how  different  the  individual  thoughts  and 
emotions  at  these  different  times  !     Compare  her  at  this  present 


BY  A  CONDEMNING  CONSCIENCE.  407 

moment,  grieving  over  the  recent  loss  of  her  earthly  partner, 
with  what  she  was  but  a  few  weeks  ago.  Or  follow  that  widow 
into  the  work  in  which  she  is  now  called  to  engage,  and  mark 
the  new  energies  called  forth  by  the  unexpected  situations  in 
which  she  is  placed.  In  these  new  scenes  she  is  the  same  as  she 
was  five  years  ago  as  the  wife,  or  as  she  was  twenty  years  ago  as 
the  lively  girl — yet  how  different  the  train  of  thought  and  feel- 
ing !  We  urge  this  merely  as  an  illustration  of  an  interesting 
psychological  phenomenon,  and  as  preparing  us  to  believe,  that 
in  the  downward  progress  of  wickedness  there  may  be  fearful 
changes — and  they  must  be  changes  to  the  worse — in  human 
character.  There  is  not  a  greater  difference  between  the  spark- 
ling diamond  and  the  black  carbon  into  which  it  may  be  burnt, 
than  there  is  between  the  original  soul  of  man,  transparent  and 
lustrous,  and  the  same  soul  calcined  by  the  fires  of  guilt  into 
the  darkest  indifference  and  the  most  sordid  selfishness. 

In  particular,  we  may  anticipate  a  drying  up  of  natural  affec- 
tion. The  raven  that  brought  intelligence  to  Apollo  was  white 
till  it  conveved  the  sad  news  of  the  death  of  a  favourite,  when  its 
colour  instantly  became  black  :  almost  as  great,  almost  as  sudden, 
is  the  change  of  feeling  with  which  men  view  certain  objects  after 
a  change  of  circumstances.  In  the  vernal  days  of  youth  and 
prosperity,  the  affections  flow  and  sparkle  on  all  sides,  and  water 
and  refresh  every  object  near  them.  But  as  years  roll  on,  they 
are  more  sparing  and  restricted  in  their  current.  Competition, 
clashing  interests,  and  selfishness  begin  to  produce  an  apathy ; 
then  the  malign  passions  breaking  out,  engender  a  fixed  hatred 
and  antipathy.  These  are  the  lessons  commonly  learned  by 
human  nature  in  the  school  of  the  world,  where  selfishness  in 
one  leads  to  selfishness  in  another,  and  malignity  in  one  party 
leads  to  malignity  in  the  opposite  party.  The  general  result  is, 
that  first  the  leaves  wither — they  may  remain  for  a  time  in  this 
state — and  then  they  are  driven  away. 

But  we  are  now  contemplating  the  effects  produced  on  the 
affections,  not  by  the  world,  but  by  that  judgment  which  we  have 
supposed  God  to  institute,  and  issuing  in  the  positive  and  open 
rebellion  of  man.  It  is  difficult  to  see  how  any  affection,  except 
of  the  most  perverted  kind,  can  outlive  such  a  scorching  of  the 
soul.  Theamazon,  in  her  warlike  pursuits,  had  her  breast  dried 
up  that  she  might  fight  the  more  fiercely  ;  and  there  is,  we  sus- 


408  GENERAL  REVIEW  OF 

pect,  such  a  drying  up  of  the  breasts  of  human  affection  in  the 
indulgence  of  the  fierce  feelings  called  up  by  a  condemning  con- 
science. We  doubt  much  if  a  soul  so  maddened  by  the  con- 
science can  ever  afterwards  look  upon  any  object  with  kindness 
and  complacency.  There  is  more  than  a  freezing  of  the  affec- 
tion, such  as  may  be  produced  by  the  cold  atmosphere  of  the 
world — for  if  there  was  nothing  but  a  freezing,  the  affection 
might  again  melt  and  flow  in  a  more  genial  clime  ;  this  awful 
judgment,  like  the  Medusa's  head,  has  turned  it  into  hard  and 
enduring  stone. 

SECT.  IX. — GENERAL  REVIEW  OF  MAN'S  EXISTING  MORAL 

NATURE. 

In  the  researches  prosecuted  in  this  chapter,  we  have  had 
little  assistance  afforded,  at  least  directly,  by  other  inquirers  into 
human  nature.*  Metaphysical  and  ethical  writers  have  com- 
monly contented  themselves  with  investigating  the  original  moral 
constitution  of  man's  mind,  and  developing  the  office  of  the 
moral  faculty  ;  but  they  have  instituted  no  particular  inquiry 
into,  nor  given  any  explanation  of,  its  existing  state.  On  the 
other  hand,  we  find  in  the  writings  of  divines  many  statements 
and  speculations  as  to  the  present  state  of  man's  heart ;  but  then 
there  is  no  inquiry  into  the  original  and  indestructible  structure 
of  man's  moral  nature.  Every  thinking  mind  has  felt  that  there 
is  a  gap  to  fill  up  between  such  writers  as  Hutcheson,  Eeid, 
Stewart,  Brown,  Mackintosh,  Kant,  Cousin,  and  Jouffroy,  on  the 
one  hand,  and  the  common  treatises  of  divinity,  such  as  those  of 
Augustine,  Calvin,  Owen,  and  Edwards,  on  the  other,  f 

*  There  are  important  principles,  however,  laid  down  in  several  of  the  dis- 
courses of  Chalmers  and  Vinet. 

f  This  discrepancy  was  clearly  perceived  by  the  acute  and  accomplished  mind 
of  Dr.  Wardlaw.  It  may  be  doubted,  however,  whether  he  has  been  successful  in 
constructing  in  his  Christian  Ethics  a  system  at  once  philosophical  and  scriptural. 
Towards  the  close  of  the  seventeenth  century,  there  arose  a  set  of  writers  who 
sought  to  meet  the  rising  rationalism  by  maintaining  that  the  human  faculties,  in 
consequence  of  their  being  depraved,  could  not  establish  any  body  of  truth.  The 
religious  philosophers  of  the  following  age  followed  a  better  method,  and  used  the 
human  understanding  in  building  a  system  of  evidences  in  behalf  of  Christianity. 
Wardlaw  has  fallen  into  an  error  in  reference  to  the  conscience,  similar  to  that 
which  was  committed  by  the  parties  referred  to  in  regard  to  human  reason.  In- 
stead of  alighting  or  setting  aside  the  revelations  of  conscience,  it  is  surely  vastly 


man's  existing  moral  nature.  409 

We  have  not  felt  ourselves  called  on  to  dispute  the  general 
accuracy  of  the  investigations  of  ethical  writers,  who  have  given 
a  high  place  to  the  moral  faculty,  and  who  have  sought  to  exalt 
man's  moral  nature.  It  is  difficult  to  convince  those  who  have 
been  taught  to  look  upon  man  as  merely  the  highest  of  the  ani- 
mals, as  merely  an  upper  brute,  that  there  should  be  such  things 
as  sin  and  salvation.  We  rejoice  then  to  find  certain  great  and 
important  truths  established  regarding  man's  moral  constitution, 
and  instead  of  overlooking  them,  we  have  sought  to  apply  them 
to  the  existing  state  of  man.  There  are  parts  of  the  writings 
of  all  the  philosophers  referred  to,  in  which  they  admit  that  the 
conscience  has  not  in  fact  tire  control  which  it  ought  to  have ; 
but  they  speedily  lose  sight  of  their  own  admission,  or  at  least 
attempt  no  explanation  of  a  phenomenon  which,  to  say  the  least 
of  it,  is  as  worthy  of  being  investigated  as  the  original  functions 
of  the  conscience.  We  have  as  certain  evidence  that  the  con- 
science convicts  every  given  man  of  sin,  as  we  have  of  the  very 
existence  of  the  conscience  itself.  It  is  upon  the  very  doctrine 
that  the  philosophers  have  established,  that  we  have  sought  to 
rear  the  other  doctrine,  which  they  are  so  averse  to  look  at. 
Adopting  the  principles  which  philosophers  have  furnished,  we 
have  followed  them  to  their  legitimate  consequences ;  and  in 
doing  so,  we  have  arrived  at  the  same  conclusions  in  regard  to 
the  corruption  of  man's  nature,  as  those  divines  who  have 
derived  their  views  from  the  volume  of  inspiration. 

While  the  view  presented  of  human  nature  has  been  suffi- 
ciently dark  and  melancholy,  it  has  at  the  same  time  been 
discriminating,  which  the  doctrine  set  forth  by  divines  has  not 
always  been.  In  maintaining  the  total  depravity  of  man's 
nature,  they  have  been  afraid  to  make  the  least  admission  as 

wiser  to  attempt  to  unfold  them  and  use  them  to  give  a  contribution  to  the  Chris- 
tian evidences — a  thing  which  cannot  be  done  by  those  who  deny  to  the  conscience 
an  independent  authority.  It  is  a  mistake  to  imagine  that  conscience  can  do 
everything  ;  but  it  is  equally  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  it  can  do  nothing. 
(1.)  Its  fundamental  laws  furnish  a  foundation  to  Ethics ;  (2.)  It  reveals  a 
law  which  constitutes  all  men  responsible  ;  (3.)  It  restrains  from  many  sins  ; 
(4.)  It  shews  that  all  men  are  sinners  ;  (5.)  It  points  to  the  need  of  a  Re- 
deemer;  (6.)  When  rectified  by  heavenly  aid  it  is  the  means  of  exciting  to  all 
excellence.  All  this  may  be  maintained  in  perfect  consistency  by  those  who 
acknowledge,  (1.)  That  the  possession  of  it  does  not  render  any  man  virtuous; 
(2.)  That  it  cannot,  apart  from  revelation,  set  before  us  a  perfect  moral  standard  ; 
and  (3.)  That  it  cannot  keep  from  all  sin  or  conduct  to  true  holiness. 


410  GENEKAL  REVIEW  OF 

to  the  qualities  and  features  of  man's  character,  which  are 
undoubtedly  pleasing  and  praiseworthy  in  themselves;  and  they 
have  taken  great  pains  to  explain  away -those  numerous  passages 
of  God's  Word  which  "  accord  to  human  virtues  those  praises 
which  could  not  be  accorded  to  them  in  a  system  which  denies 
all  moral  value  in  the  actions  of  men."* 

In  particular,  we  have  seen,  (1.)  That  the  conscience  retains 
in  the  human  mind  its  original  claims  of  authority.  The  law 
is  broken,  but  it  is  still  binding.  Then,  (2.)  There  is  room  in 
the  depraved  heart  of  man  for  the  play  and  exercise  of  all  the 
high  talents  and  susceptibilities  with  which  man  was  originally 
furnished.  (3.)  There  are  still  in  the  human  mind  many  amiable 
and  benevolent  qualities.  (4.)  There  are  actions  of  moral 
honesty  and  integrity,  and  even  of  religion  so  called,  performed 
in  obedience  to  the  conscience.  But  over  against  these  truths  we 
have  to  place  an  equal  number  of  others.  As,  (1.)  While  the 
conscience  asserts  its  claims,  these  claims  are  not  attended  to. 
(2.)  The  powers  and  sensibilities  of  the  mind  are  abused  and 
perverted.  (3.)  The  affections  are  not  under  the  control  of 
right  principle,  and,  in  particular,  are  not  directed  to  G-od  as 
they  ought.  (4.)  The  actions,  whether  of  morality  or  religion, 
performed  in  obedience  to  the  conscience,  are  performed  in 
obedience  to  a  perverted  conscience  ;  and  so  there  is  something 
defective  in  the  actions  themselves,  while  the  general  state  of 
the  agent  being  depraved,  we  cannot  approve  of  the  agent  in 
the  acts. 

It  is  of  the  utmost  moment  that  the  doctrine  now  expounded 
be  distinguished  from  the  miserably  low  and  grovelling  views  of 
those  who  would  represent  all  and  each  of  mankind  as  utterly 
selfish  and  dishonest.  This  is  an  opinion,  learned  not  in  the 
school  of  religion,  but  in  the  school  of  the  world.  It  prevails 
among  the  low-minded  and  the  suspicious,  and  in  those  ages 
and  states  of  society  in  which  men's  sentiments  have  been 
debauched  by  reigning  profligacy,  (the  most  selfish  of  all  the 
vices,  though  it  may  seem  the  most  generous,)  or  utterly  pro- 
strated and  perverted  by  the  disappointment  succeeding  a  period 
of  great  public  profession  of  generosity  which  has  turned  out  to 
be  hypocritical.  Men  judge  of  others  by  themselves  ;  and  the 
selfish  cannot  be  brought  to  believe  in  the  existence  of  disin- 

*  Viiiet. 


man's  existing  moeal  nature.  411 

terestedness.  Those  who  have  made  it  their  business  to  corrupt 
their  species,  and  those  who  habitually  mingle  with  the  aban- 
doned, have  generally  reasoned  themselves  out  of  all  belief  in 
human  virtue.  Persons  once  cheated  are  afraid  of  deceit  all 
their  lives  after  ;  and  when  nations  have  come  to  see  the  hollow- 
ness  of  the  professions  of  patriotism  which  those  who  wish  to 
lead  them  have  made,  they  are  apt  to  conclude  in  their  haste  that 
all  men  are  deceivers. 

We  are  most  anxious  that  it  should  be  observed,  that  the  view 
which  we  have  presented  of  human  nature  encourages  no  such 
dark  and  suspicious  sentiments.  It  does  not  lead  every  man  to 
suspect  his  neighbour  ;  it  rather  leads  every  man  to  be  jealous  of 
himself.  No  two  classes  of  maxims  can  be  more  opposed  than 
those  of  such  writers  as  Rochefoucault  and  Helvetius,  who  exhibit 
human  selfishness  in  unrelieved  colours,  that  we  may  be  brought 
to  distrust  all  men  ;  and  those  of  good  men  who  love  the  human 
race,  even  when  they  mourn  over  its  sad  degeneracy.  We 
acknowledge  that,  in  perfect  consistency  with  the  views  above 
developed,  there  may  be  among  mankind  much  real  hospitality, 
kindness,  and  sympathy  with  distress  ;  much  sincere  friendship, 
noble  patriotism,  and  large-hearted  philanthropy  ;  the  heart  to 
feel  and  the  hand  to  help  ;  the  spirit  to  purpose,  and  the  courage 
to  execute,  deeds  of  patience  and  the  highest  heroism. 

We  are  most  anxious,  too,  that  the  views  expounded  should  be 
distinguished  from  those  of  the  Utilitarian  school  of  philosophy  in 
this  country,  and  of  what  has  been  called  the  Sensational  school 
in  France,  and  of  all  who  tell  us  that  every  man  is  mainly 
governed  by  a  regard  to  his  own  interest.  Truly,  there  are  some 
who  would  degrade  human  nature  lower  than  it  is,  on  the  pretence 
of  exalting  it.  Fallen  though  mankind  be,  they  are  capable  of 
entertaining  and  cherishing  many  kindly  feelings  and  benevolent 
affections,  and  they  are  fully  as  often  swayed  by  impulse,  caprice, 
lust,  and  passion,  as  by  a  systematic  selfishness. 

We  utterly  abhor  such  a  sentiment  as  that  on  which  a  certain 
writer  would  found  a  whole  theory  of  jurisprudence,  namely,  that 
every  man  pursues  his  own  interest  when  he  knows  it.  We  may 
agree  with  Rochefoucault  when  he  says,  "  That  which  we  take 
for  virtues  is  often  nothing  but  an  assemblage  of  divers  actions, 
and  of  divers  interests,  which  fortune  or  our  own  industry  knows 
how  to  arrange."     "  We  are  so  prepossessed  in  a  way  in  our  own 


412  GENERAL  REVIEW  OF 

favour,  that  what  we  take  for  virtues  is  often  nothing  but  a  number 
of  vices  which  have  met  together,  and  which  pride  and  self-love 
have  disguised."  But  when  the  same  author  lets  us  know  else- 
where that  he  resolves  so-called  human  virtues  into  the  lowest  and 
most  grovelling  vices,  we  draw  back  from  his  maxims  with  detes- 
tation. "  Virtue  would  ndt  go  far  if  vanity  did  not  keep  it  com- 
pany." "  That  which  appears  generosity  is  often  nothing  but 
ambition  in  disguise,  despising  small  interests  in  order  to  attain 
greater."*  That  there  is  some  justice  in  these  maxims  cannot  be 
denied,  but  we  deplore  that  they  should  be  used  for  the  purpose 
of  furthering  so  low  an  object,  and  leaving  so  dangerous  an  im- 
pression. The  man  who  believes  his  whole  species  to  be  villains, 
is  sure  to  end  by  himself  becoming  one,  if  indeed  he  has  not  begun 
by  judging  others  by  himself.  "  I  said  in  my  haste,  that  all  men 
are  liars;"  the  man  who  says  so,  not  in  haste,  but  in  his  calm 
and  reflecting  moments,  is,  we  suspect,  all  that  he  makes  others  to 
be.  All  persons  who,  like  Walpole  and  Bonaparte,  lay  it  down  as 
a  principle  that  every  man  has  a  price  and  can  be  corrupted, 
may  be  judged  by  their  own  standard.  Nor  can  we  find  language 
strong  enough  to  condemn  that  miserable  so-called  philosophy 
which  tells  us,  that  "  a  physical  sensibility  has  produced  in  us  a 
love  of  pleasure  and  hatred  of  pain  ;  that  pleasure  and  pain  have 
at  length  produced  and  opened  in  all  hearts  the  buds  of  self-love, 
which,  by  unfolding  themselves,  give  birth  to  the  passions  whence 
spring  all  our  virtues  and  vices."f  It  is  true  that  we  must  divide 
off  from  our  catalogue  of  human  virtues  many  actions  which 
appear  virtuous,  but  which  proceed  from  nothing  but  pride, 
vanity,  ambition,  and  a  disguised  selfishness.  But  after  having 
made  full  allowance  for  such,  there  still  remains  a  large  body  of 
actions,  which  we  must  refer  to  amiable  and  generous  feelings, 
without  one  grain  of  a  baser  alloy. 

There  are  deeper  mysteries  in  man's  spiritual  nature  than 
some  superficial  thinkers  ever  dream  of.  Their  "  inept  and 
unscientific  gunnery  does  not  include  in  its  calculations  the 
parabolic  curve  of  man's  spiritual  nature."  J  Except  by  taking 
into  our  calculation  a  conscience,  and  an  evil  conscience,  we 
cannot  comprehend  human  nature  or  human  action.  Those 
who  have  left  this  essential  part  of  man's  existing  character  and 

*  Maxims,  1,  207,  240,  301.  j  Helvetius  on  the  Mind. 

X  Miller's  First  Impressions  of  England  and  the  English. 


man's  existing  moral  nature.  413 

nature  out  of  account,  have  failed  to  give  any  rational  account 
of  his  conduct,  more  particularly  in  reference  to  religion  ;  and 
as  they  felt  their  incompetency,  they  have  burst  out  into  empty 
declamations  against  superstition  and  fanaticism,  and  have  lost 
their  own  temper  in  ridiculing  human  infirmity.  We  cannot 
explain  human  folly  under  certain  of  its  modifications — we 
cannot  explain  human  folly  even  by  human  passion — we  cannot 
understand  the  particular  mode  and  intensity  of  human  wicked- 
ness— we  are  puzzled  at  every  step,  till  we  call  in  a  perverted 
moral  sense.  It  is  by  the  help  of  this,  the  most  singular  part  of 
man's  nature,  that  we  are  enabled  to  account  for  all  other  singu- 
larities and  anomalies  of  his  spiritual  constitution. 

Man's  fallen,  like  his  original,  nature  is  a  deep  and  a  complex 
one.  There  are  other  sins  and  passions  besides  those  low  and 
base  ones  into  which  vulgar  minds  would  resolve  every  principle 
of  man's  heart.  Some  can  discover  nothing  in  man's  actuating 
motives  but  the  love  of  money,  others  nothing  but  the  love  of 
praise,  and  a  third  class,  apparently  more  profound,  resolve  all 
into  a  refined  and  far-sighted  self-love.  These  contracted  views 
of  narrow  minds  and  suspicious  hearts  are  utterly  inadequate  to 
explain  the  mysteries  of  the  human  soul.  The  lusts  and  plea- 
sures of  the  human  heart  are  very  numerous,  and  assume  an 
infinite  variety  of  forms.  There  may  be  much  sinfulness  where 
there  is  no  selfishness.  The  very  attempts  which  these  men 
make  to  find  such  low  motives  for  human  action,  indicate  how 
inadequate  are  their  views  of  the  true  nature  of  virtue ;  for 
they  as  much  as  say,  that  if  they  could  meet  with  real  kindness 
and  amiability  in  the  world,  they  would  be  completely  satisfied, 
though  there  were  no  godliness  and  no  moral  principle.  We 
include  all  men  under  sin,  not  by  seeking  to  debase  the  human 
character  lower  than  it  is,  but  by  exalting  the  standard  of  virtue 
— not  higher  than  it  ought  to  be — but  by  making  it  such  as 
God  hath  ordained  it  in  our  very  constitution. 

Not  only  are  these  two  views,  which  we  may  call  the  selfish 
and  the  evangelical,  different  in  themselves — they  are  different 
also  in  their  practical  influence.  The  tendency  of  the  one  is  to 
render  each  man  satisfied  with  himself,  and  suspicious  of  those 
with  whom  he  comes. in  contact.  The  tendency  of  the  other  is 
to  humble  every  man  in  his  own  estimation,  and  prompt  him  to 
use  all  available  means  to  elevate  a  race  that  has  sunk  to  such 


414  GENERAL  REVIEW  OF 

a  depth  of  degradation.  He  who  habitually  looks  upon  his 
fellows  in  the  former  of  these  lights  is  apt  to  become  hard- 
hearted, cunning,  selfish,  and  grovelling.  Believing  mankind 
to  be  deceivers,  he  treats  them  as  deceivers,  and  becomes  himself 
a  deceiver  in  doing  so!  Imagining  himself  to  be  surrounded  by 
persons  whose  ruling  principle  is  selfishness,  and  whose  mean  of 
furthering  their  end  is  deceit,  he  feels,  in  dealing  with  them,  as 
if  he  were  constrained  to  descend  to  their  level,  and  fight  them 
with  their  own  weapons.  On  the  other  hand,  he  who  views  the 
race  as  ungodly,  but  who  looks  upon  himself  as  tainted  with  the 
same  evil,  will  be  so  awed  by  a  sense  of  his  own  sinfulness  as  to 
be  incapable  of  judging  harshly  of  others  ;  and  the  worst  feel- 
ings with  which  he  regards  the  race  will  be  those  of  sorrow  and 
commiseration. 

We  are  not  then  at  liberty  to  regard  man  with  a  cynic,  scorn- 
ful feeling,  such  as  that  which  rises  up  when  we  look  at  a 
loathsome  reptile.  We  may  denounce  man ;  but  we  should 
never  despise  him.  We  may  blame,  but  we  dare  not  contemn 
him,  lest,  in  doing  so,  we  should  be  contemning  the  noblest 
part  of  the  workmanship  of  God  in  this  lower  world.  There 
may  be  indignation,  pity,  or  horror,  but  mingled  with  these 
there  must  be  feelings  of  honour,  respect,  and  reverence  towards 
the  essential  parts  and  principles  of  a  creature  formed  in  the 
very  image  of  God.  We  infer  the  height  at  which  man  was  at 
first  placed,  from  the  greatness  of  his  fall ;  we  measure  his 
elevation  by  the  extent  of  his  shadow. 

Nor  will  these  views  induce  us  to  retire  from  the  world  in 
disgust,  or  make  us  feel  a  less  lively  interest  in  the  race.  The 
truths  on  which  our  mind  is  made  to  dwell  will  rather  tend  to 
quicken  and  strengthen  our  love,  and  cause  it  to  flow  out  in  a 
deeper  and  stronger  current.  When  is  it  that  we  think  most  of 
an  earthly  friend,  and  are  most  deeply  concerned  about  his 
welfare  ?  Is  it  when  he  is  known  to  be  in  safety,  dwelling  in 
security  in  the  bosom  of  his  family,  far  from  violence,  or  disease, 
or  accident  ?  or  rather,  is  it  not  when  he  is  thought  to  be  in 
danger,  when  he  is  on  the  midnight  journey,  in  paths  which 
robbers  infest,  or  crossed  by  deep  and  rapid  rivers,  sweeping 
many  an  unguarded  traveller  from  this  world  to  the  next  ? 
When  is  it  that  the  wife  thinks  most  of  the  husband,  and  the 
sister  feels  the  deepest  interest  in  the  brother  ?     Is  it  not  when 


man's  existing  moral  nature.  415 

the  party  loved  is  laid  on  a  bed  of  distress,  or  fighting  with  the 
billows  of  death  ?  A  love  is  then  kindled  which  never  burned 
before,  and  tears  flow  from  eyes,  the  very  fountains  of  which 
seemed  to  have  been  dried  up  by  the  scorching  power  of  this 
world's  anxieties.  It  is  the  very  circumstance  that  the  race  is 
lost  which  awakens  so  deep  a  feeling  in  the  breast  of  the  Chris- 
tian— a  feeling  accompanied  with  the  thought  that  what  is  thus 
lost  is  precious  above  all  price  which  can  be  set  upon  it,  and 
that  the  recovery  of  it  is  worth  any  amount  of  labour  which  he 
can  render — even  as  it  was  worth  the  sacrifice  of  the  very  Son 
of  God. 


-■  j  J  MOTIVE  PRINCIPLES 


CHAPTER  III. 

MOTIVE  PEINCIPLES  OF  THE  MIND. 

8ECT.  I. — MOTIVE  PRINCIPLES  NEITHER  VIRTUOUS  NOR  VICIOUS 
APPETITES  AND  MENTAL  APPETENCIES. 

We  have  divided  the  Motive  Department  of  the  mind  into 
the  Will,  the  Conscience,  and  the  Emotions.  Having  dwelt  at 
considerable  length  on  the  two  first  of  these,  we  are  now  to 
consider  the  Emotions.  At  the  basis  of  the  emotions  prompting 
and  drawing  them  forth  will  be  found  Motive  or  Appetent 
Principles. 

It  would  serve  many  important  ends  to  have  an  exhaustive 
classification  of  the  motive  principles  of  the  mind,  that  is,  of  the 
principles  of  action  by  which  man  may  be  led,  or  the  ends 
which  he  may  set  before  him  in  his  actions.  Without  profess- 
ing to  be  able  to  furnish  such,  we  may  point  out  some  active 
principles  which  are  evidently  in  the  very  nature  and  constitu- 
tion of  the  mind.  Among  these  we  must  give  a  high  place  to 
the  propensity  to  seek  that  which  is  known  to  communicate 
pleasure,  and  avoid  that  which  is  expected  to  inflict  pain,  and 
this  in  regard  either  to  ourselves  or  others.  But  they  take  a 
miserably  defective  view  of  man's  nature  who  represent  him  as 
incapable  of  being  swayed  by  any  other  motive  better  or  worse. 
There  is,  for  example,  a  tendency  in  the  mind  to  exercise  and 
gratify  every  intellectual  power,  natural  or  acquired,  and  to 
seek  whatever  may  favour  such  action  and  indulgence.  The 
mind  is  also  disposed  to  seek  what  it  is  led  to  regard  as  beauti- 
ful. Man  may,  and  should  above  all  things,  be  influenced  by 
the  desire  to  secure  moral  good  and  avoid  moral  evil. 

Besides  these  more  general  motive  principles,  there  are  par- 
ticular natural  appetencies  which  look  to  ends  of  their  own, 


NEITHER  VIRTUOUS  NOR  VICIOUS.  417 

towards  (to  use  the  language  of  Butler)  particular  external 
things  of  which  it  hath  always  a  particular  idea  or  perception, 
towards  these  external  things  themselves,  distinct  from  the 
pleasure  arising  from  them.  These  are  not  in  themselves  either 
virtuous  or  vicious.  But  it  should  be  noticed  that  they  are  all 
excellent  in  themselves,  and  in  admirable  adjustment  to  the 
state  in  which  the  Author  of  our  being  has  placed  us.  Anterior 
to  the  abuse  which  may  be  made  of  them,  they  are  of  the  most 
beneficent  nature,  and  eminently  fitted  to  promote  the  welfare 
of  the  individual,  and  of  society  at  large.  The  mere  possession 
of  them,  however,  does  not  constitute  any  one  virtuous  ;  it 
proves  merely  the  wisdom  and  benevolence  of  Him  who  hath 
planted  them  in  our  natures. 

In  now  proceeding  to  consider  some  of  these  principles  of 
action,  we  shall  not  be  at  pains  to  make  a  very  nice  or  subtle 
analysis  of  them.  It  is  possible  that  a  refined  analysis  might 
resolve  some  of  those  about  to  be  enunciated  into  simpler 
elements ;  we  look  at  them  in  the  obvious  forms  which  they 
assume  in  the  actual  operations  of  the  mind.  It  is  of  little  con- 
sequence to  the  object  in  view,  whether  they  be  original  prin- 
ciples, or  the  natural  and  necessary  result  of  original  principles. 
It  is  enough  that  they  be  found  in  the  human  mind,  naturally 
and  intuitively,  and  anterior  to  any  exercise  of  the  human  will 
producing  them. 

I.  There  are  the  Appetites. 

"  This  class  of  our  active  principles,"  says  Dugald  Stewart, 
"  is  distinguished  by  the  following  circumstances  : — (1.)  They 
take  their  rise  from  the  body,  and  are  common  to  us  with  the 
brutes.  (2.)  They  are  not  constant,  but  occasional.  (3.)  They 
are  accompanied  with  an  uneasy  sensation,  which  is  strong  or 
weak,  in  proportion  to  the  strength  or  weakness  of  the  appetite. 
Our  appetites  are  three  in  number — hunger,  thirst,  and  the 
appetite  of  sex.  Of  these,  two  were  intended  for  the  pre- 
servation of  the  individual,  the  third  for  the  continuance  of  the 
species  ;  and  without  them,  reason  would  have  been  insufficient 
for  these  important  purposes."  He  adds,  "  Our  occasional  pro- 
pensities to  action  and  repose  are  in  many  respects  analogous  to 
our  appetites." 

Had  it  been  our  object  to  point  out  instances  of  design  in  the 
works  of  God,  these  appetites,  connecting  as  they  do  the  bodily 

2  D 


418  MOTIVE  PRINCIPLES 

frame,  on  the  one  hand  with  external  physical  nature,  and  on 
the  other  hand  with  the  mind  within,  might  have  supplied  many 
instructive  examples.  Regarding  them  merely  as  materials  of 
government,  they  do  still  exhibit  some  traces  of  design  to  the 
reflecting  mind.  We  see  how  wise  and  efficient  the  provision 
made  for  the  preservation  of  the  race.  We  see  how  the  appetites 
compel  man  to  be  industrious  and  laborious,  in  order  to  obtain 
the  food  needful  for  their  gratification ;  and  how  they  render 
him  active  on  the  one  hand,  and  dependent  on  the  other.  With- 
out these  appetites  he  would  have  been  sluggish  and  inactive ; 
or,  impelled  by  propensities  merely  mental,  he  would  have  been 
rash  in  his  speculations,  and  imprudent  in  his  actions.  They  are 
one  main  instrument  in  the  hand  of  God  for  giving  steadfastness 
to  his  government,  and  in  making  man  fulfil  the  purposes  which 
he  has  to  execute  upon  the  earth. 

II.  There  are  the  Mental  Appetences. 

(1.)  The  appetence  for  Icnoivledge.  This  principle,  in  the  form 
of  curiosity,  appears  in  children  in  early  life,  and  in  the  most 
savage  and  primitive  states  of  society.  The  unknown,  the  hid- 
den, have  most  powerful  attractions  for  the  inquisitive  spirit  of 
man.  The  curious  prying  into  a  neighbour's  character,  and  the 
love  of  news  so  common  in  villages  and  rural  districts,  show  that 
this  principle  is  found  in  the  lowest  grades  of  society.  As  the 
mind  is  expanded,  so  is  this  desire  elevated  ;  and  it  becomes  the 
love  of  travelling,  the  love  of  history,  the  love  of  reading,  and 
the  love  of  science.  The  traveller  encountering  the  most 
imminent  perils  in  the  burning  sands  of  Africa  or  the  icy 
regions  of  the  poles,  the  scholar  wasting  his  strength  over  the 
midnight  lamp,  testify  how  intense  this  desire  may  become  in 
individual  minds. 

The  more  we  reflect,  the  more  must  we  be  impressed  with  the 
extent  of  the  influence  exercised  by  this  principle  upon  mankind 
at  large.  It  is  a  great  incentive  to  activity  among  individual 
minds,  and  it  helps  on  the  improvement  of  society.  Through  it 
the  corners  of  the  earth  are  brought  together,  and  the  most 
distant  periods  of  the  past  are  made  to  hand  down  instruction 
to  the  present.  It  brings  human  character  under  inspection, 
and  therefore  under  the  control  of  public  opinion,  and  thus 
lays  great  restraints  upon  human  wickedness.  Take  away  the 
thirst  for  knowledge  from  the  race,  and  you  sink  them  beneath 


NEITHER  VIRTUOUS  NOR  VICIOUS.  419 

the  savage  state,  and  with  no  reasonable  hope  of  ever  elevating 
them. 

(2.)  Tlie  appetence  for  esteem..  It  is  a  principle  of  all  hut 
universal  operation.  Most  men  have  a  wish  to  leave  a  name  be- 
hind them  ;  some  cutting  it  as  it  were  on  the  rock  that  it  may 
endure  as  long  as  the  earth  endures  ;  others  carving  it  as  it  were 
on  the  bark  of  a  tree  that  it  may  last  for  years,  and  some  writing 
it  as  on  the  sand,  but  each  striving  to  have  some  memorial. 
"  We  observe,"  says  Swift,  "  even  among  the  vulgar,  how  fond 
they  are  to  have  an  inscription  over  their  grave."  Some,  it  is 
true,  have  in  their  career  of  vice  fallen  beneath  this  motive,  but 
few  have  risen  above  it.  Some  court  the  good  opinion  of  the 
masses,  and  others  of  the  select  few.  One  man  looks  down  with 
contempt  upon  the  approbation  of  the  poor,  the  illiterate,  and 
the  vulgar ;  but  it  is  because  he  would  stand  high  in  the  favour 
of  the  rich,  the  learned,  the  polite,  and  the  accomplished.  The 
demagogue  cares  not  for  the  good  opinion  of  the  higher  and  more 
refined  classes  of  society,  and  he  thinks  that  he  shows  his  courage 
in  doing  so  ;  but  then  he  is  as  vain  as  the  other,  for  he  drinks 
in  greedily  the  applause  of  the  many.  Most  of  those  whom  the 
world  worships  have  been  the  very  slaves  of  this  principle.  Lord 
Chancellor  Erskine  calls  it  "  the  inherent  passion  of  genius." 
Fame  is  an  idol  before  whom  more  have  bowed  than  before  Baal 
or  Jupiter,  Brahma  or  Budha,  or  the  most  extensively  worshipped 
of  the  gods  of  heathenism.  The  sound  of  human  applause  is 
heard  by  ears  commonly  regarded  as  most  shut  against  it.  The 
student  hears  its  rising  sound  in  his  closet,  and  longs  to  bring 
forth  from  his  researches  a  work  that  may  swell  the  noise  yet 
louder  and  louder.  The  politician  and  patriot  listen  to  it  in  the 
shout  of  the  applauding  rabble,  or  in  the  whispered  compliment 
of  some  more  select,  and,  as  they  think,  more  discerning  circle. 
The  soldier  hears  it  louder  than  the  din  of  battle  or  the  voice  of 
the  trumpet,  and  is  prepared  to  follow  it  even  over  the  mangled 
carcases  of  his  fellow-men.  It  is  suspected  that  it  has  not  been 
unheard  by  the  monk  in  his  cell,  or  the  nun  in  her  cloister. 
The  very  minister  of  religion  has  heard  its  echoes  when  he  is 
arranging  his  thoughts  for  addressing  his  congregation,  and  has 
difficulty  in  shutting  his  ears  to  it  when  as  an  ambassador  he  is 
delivering  the  message  of  mercy  to  sinners. 

This  desire  does  not  seem  to  be  in  itself  either  virtuous  or 


420  MOTIVE  PRINCIPLES 

vicious.  So  far  as  it  is  not  degraded  by  being  associated  with 
human  wickedness,  it  serves  most  important  purposes  in  the 
government  of  the  world.  It  is  one  of  the  most  potent  of  those 
principles  by  which,  in  spite  of  prevailing  selfishness  and  malice, 
the  race  are  banded  together.  It  is  the  true  source  of  much  that 
we  call  amiability,  or  that  spirit  which  leads  us  to  study  the 
temper,  the  tastes,  and  feelings  of  our  fellow-men.  Many  of  the 
schemes  for  ameliorating  the  condition  of  mankind  have  origin- 
ated in  this  feeling  rather  than  in  any  spirit  of  enlarged  benevo- 
lence. Take  away  this  intuitive  principle,  and  many  communities 
of  mankind  would  become  dens  of  wild  beasts,  with  their  inter- 
ests and  their  passions  engaging  them  in  never-ceasing  conflicts. 

(3.)  The  appetence  for  poiver.  This  principle,  which  seems 
to  exist  to  some  extent  in  all  minds,  exercises  a  prodigious  sway 
over  certain  minds,  and  may  become  one  of  the  deepest  passions 
of  the  human  breast.  It  is  a  peculiarity  of  it,  that,  more  than 
any  other  of  the  intuitive  desires,  it  seems  to  increase  with  exer- 
cise and  gratification,  and  it  comes  at  length  to  seize  the  mind 
with  an  iron  grasp.  In  regard  to  some  other  passions,  the  mind 
is  often  led  to  discover  their  vanity,  and  to  abandon  with  disgust 
the  objects  pursued  for  years;  but  the  love  of  power  seems  to  grow 
with  advancing  years,  and  holds  its  possessor  iu  a  state  of  more 
slavish  subjection  than  he  holds  those  who  have  submitted  them- 
selves to  his  sway ;  so  that  every  tyrant  is  himself  ruled  over 
by  a  tyranny  more  grasping  than  that  which  he  wields  over 
others. 

Looking  at  this  principle  as  it  is  in  itself,  and  not  in  its  sinful 
excess,  it  must  evidently  have  a  powerful  influence  in  uniting 
mankind  together.  The  patriarchal,  the  chieftain,  and  the  mon- 
archical systems  derive  much  of  their  strength  from  it.  It  is  the 
cement  of  much  of  the  combined  action  that  produces  such  mighty 
effects.  It  is  seen  and  felt  in  republics,  as  well  as  in  monarchies. 
The  leader  of  a  band  of  his  school-companions,  of  a  troop  of 
youths,  of  a  village,  of  a  valley,  of  a  town  or  country,  of  a  power- 
ful state  party,  of  a  cabinet  or  a  parliament— these  may  all  be 
under  its  sway  no  less  effectually  than  the  monarch  upon  the 
throne,  and  may  each  be  the  nucleus  around  which  there  cluster 
numbers  who  would  otherwise  be  isolated  in  all  their  actions,  and 
wavering  and  unsteady  in  all  their  movements.  All  unknown 
to  the  parties  themselves,  wave  has  rolled  on  wave  to  keep  this 


NEITHEll  VIRTUOUS  NOR  VICIOUS.  421 

world  from  stagnating,  and  all  perhaps  under  the  attracting 
power  of  some  satellite,  which  is  itself  attracted  to  a  planet  roll- 
ing round  a  central  sun.  It  is  thus  that  one  great  central 
energy,  one  great  ruling  mind,  has  held  together  and  swayed 
the  destinies  of  kingdoms,  and.  reached  in  its  influence  through 
successive  generations. 

(4.)  The  appetence  for  society.  This  is  a  propensity  which 
man  may  resist  under  the  influence  of  other  and  stronger  pro- 
pensities ;  still  it  is  one  which  every  human  being  feels.  "  It  is 
not  good  for  man  to  be  alone."  The  hermit  draws  such  praise 
from  his  admirers,  just  because  he  is  resisting  one  of. the  strongest 
principles  of  our  nature.  Nor  is  it  needful,  in  support  of  our 
argument,  to  plead  that  this  love  of  society  is  a  principle  which 
cannot  be  resolved  into  anything  simpler.  It  may  very  possibly 
be  the  result  of  other  feelings,  which  are  called  forth  by  the  very 
position  in  which  man  is  placed.  Still  it  cannot  be  doubted, 
that  it  is  of  spontaneous  growth  in  the  human  mind,  and  is  not 
the  result  of  any  voluntary  and  far-sighted  calculations.  Spring- 
ing up,  as  it  does,  under  the  influence  of  natural  causes,  it  is 
made  to  accomplish  many  important  results.  It  lightens  many 
hours  that  would  otherwise  be  intolerably  heavy,  and  perfumes, 
by  the  kindnesses  which  flow  from  it,  the  very  atmosphere  which 
society  breathes.  Hence  many  of  the  amenities  of  society,  and 
the  numberless  offices  of  kind  and  obliging  neighbourhood.  It 
raises  a  smile  upon  many  a  countenance  that  would  otherwise 
settle  into  a  murky  sulkiness  ;  and  calls  forth  many  a  cheerful 
remark,  pleasant  anecdote,  and  smart  repartee,  from  lips  that 
would  otherwise  be  sealed  in  silence.  This  power  may  not  act 
at  large  distances  ;  but,  like  capillary  attraction,  it  holds  bodies 
that  are  near  compactly  together  ;  and  banding  as  it  does  each 
little  circle,  and  the  members  of  each  little  circle  being  connected 
with  the  neighbouring  circles,  it  reaches  in  its  influence  over  the 
whole  of  society. 

(5.)  The  appetence  for  property.  Some  analysts  of  the  human 
mind  have  resolved  this  principle  into  a  modification  of  the  love 
of  power.  Be  it  so,  it  is  not  the  less  a  spontaneous  product  of 
native  principles.  And  in  whatever  other  element  it  may 
originate,  it  becomes  at  last  an  independent  principle  of  action. 
In  some  of  its  forms  it  may  appear  to  be  about  the  most  sordid 
of  all  human  passions.     But  speaking  of  it,  not  in  the  abuse  of  it, 


422       MOTIVE  PRINCIPLES  NEITHER  VIRTUOUS  NOR  VICIOUS. 

but  as  it  is  in  itself,  it  wields  a  most  powerful  influence,  holding 
men  as  by  gravity  to  this  earth  on  which  God  has  placed  them. 
In  some  of  its  aspects,  nothing  can  be  more  irrational  than  to  toil 
for  years,  as  many  do,  for  property  which  is  never  to  be  enjoyed, 
and  from  which  they  must  speedily  be  separated.  Still  the  very 
habit  has  given  steadiness  of  aim  and  a  spirit  of  caution  to  indivi- 
dual minds,  and  the  general  issue  is  the  accumulation  of  wealth, 
with  the  powers  which  wealth  puts  in  operation.  More  bene- 
ficial still,  there  are  the  refinements  and  the  elegances  which 
■wealth  produces,  and  the  conservatist  feeling  which  the  existence 
of  valuable  property  spreads  throughout  the  more  influential 
portion  of  the  community.  Satirists  may  ridicule  wealth  as  they 
please,  and  describe  the  poorest  nations  as  the  happiest ;  still  it 
cannot  be  denied  that  accumulated  property  tends  to  produce  an 
elegance  and  a  social  order  which  cannot  be  found  in  communi- 
ties stricken  with  poverty  and  constantly  striving  about  the  very 
necessaries  of  existence. 

Now,  these  appetites  and  appetences  are  among  the  most  in- 
fluential of  the  principles  by  which  human  nature  is  governed. 
The  will  may  erect  upon  them,  or  by  them,  a  calculating  self- 
love  which  strives  to  obtain  as  much  enjoyment  as  possible,  or  a 
habitual  benevolence  which  deliberately  seeks  the  good  of  others  ; 
but  it  is  by  the  primary  impulses  fully  as  much  as  by  the  secon- 
dary principles  of  self-love  and  benevolence,  that  mankind  are 
induced  to  maintain  an  outward  decency  of  deportment,  and  so- 
ciety at  large  is  made  to  clothe  itself  in  becoming  decorum. 
Some  of  these  principles  give  life,  movement,  and  onward  pro- 
gress to  society,  and  others  impart  to  it  strength  and  endurance. 
Some  act  with  a  springing,  elastic  force,  and  others  have  a  gra- 
vitating power.  Some  tend  to  disjoin  what  ought  to  be  sepa- 
rated, and  others  to  band  together  the  things  which  should  be 
united.  The  implanting  of  these  principles — diverse  from  one 
another,  and  yet  all  tending  to  the  same  end — shows  how  admi- 
rable is  the  provision  made  for  the  social  order  of  the  world. 

Yet  so  far  as  mankind  are  under  the  influence  of  these  prin- 
ciples they  are  neither  virtuous  nor  the  opposite.  It  is  to  be 
remembered,  however,  that  the  very  possession  of  these  intui- 
tions, like  the  possession  of  high  intellectual  qualities,  brings 
along  with  it  additional  responsibility,  and,  when  they  are 
abused,  additional  guilt. 


THE  EMOTIONS  AND  AFFECTIONS.  423 


SECT.  II. — THE  EMOTIONS  AND  AFFECTIONS. 

The  Emotions  are  called  forth  by  the  Motive  Principles, 
spoken  of  in  last  section.  It  is  of  some  moment  to  establish 
this. 

First,  we  would  have  it  observed,  that  in  every  emotion  there 
is  a  mental  representation,  or  apprehension  of  an  object.  This 
conception  is  the  substance  from  which  feeling  is  exhaled  as 
fragrance  is  from  the  rose  or  lily— it  is  the  body,  of  which 
feeling  is  as  it  were  the  accompanying  atmosphere.  Thus  when 
hope  is  kindled,  there  is  the  apprehension  of  an  object  as  about 
to  bring  good  to  us  ;  when  fear  is  roused,  there  is  the  representa- 
tion of  an  object  as  about  to  produce  evil.  Emotions  are  thus 
dependent  on  the  mental  representations  to  which  they  are  at- 
tached ;  though  it  is  to  be  carefully  observed  that  they  are 
something  more,  as  consciousness  clearly  attests,  than  the  mental 
conception  upon  which,  as  well  as  upon  the  general  train  of  as- 
sociation, they  exercise  a  powerful  influence.  The  Author  of 
our  nature  in  making  the  conception  of  certain  objects  emotional, 
has  added  vastly  to  man's  capacity  for  enjoyment,  and  has  pro- 
vided for  himself  a  powerful  instrument  of  government.  But  all 
conceptions  are  not  accompanied  with  emotion  ; — and  the  ques- 
tion arises,  what  are  the  objects  or  the  conceptions  of  objects 
which  are  so  ?     This  leads  us  to  remark — 

Secondly,  the  conceptions  which  raise  emotions  are  of  objects 
which  gratify  or  disappoint  the  motive  principles  of  the  mind 
natural  or  acquired.  Nothing  raises  emotion  except  the  con- 
templation of  an  object  bearing  a  reference  to  them :  every 
object  conceived  as  furthering  or  frustrating  these  motive  ends 
raises  less  or  more  of  feeling.  We  have  in  a  previous  part  of 
this  treatise  (p.  266)  pointed  out  the  peculiarities  of  emotions ; 
they  are  characterized  by  attachment  or  repugnance  and  excite- 
ment. All  objects  gratifying  the  motive  propensities  call  forth 
attachment,  whereas  all  objects  which  seem  to  thwart  them  are 
viewed  with  aversion,  and  all  such  attachments  and  aversions 
put  the  mind  in  an  excited  state.  The  objects  thus  appetible  or 
the  reverse  are  regarded  by  the  mind  as  good  or  evil— and  these 
phrases  may  be  applied  to  them  in  a  loose  sense,  and  provided 
they  are  not  understood  as  implying  anything  moral  or  immoral, 


424  THE  EMOTIONS  AND  AFFECTIONS. 

It  is  always  to  be  remembered  that  above  these  motive  princi- 
ples and  emotive  attachments,  we  have  the  conscience,  whose 
office  it  is  to  say  when  they  should  be  gratified,  and  when  they 
should  be  restrained,  and  also  the  will  to  decide  between  com- 
peting impulses  or  between  inclination  and  duty. 

We  are  to  consider  the  emotions  exclusively  under  one  aspect, 
that  is,  as  means  of  government.  As  viewing  them  in  this  light 
the  common  divisions  or  classifications  will  not  suit  our  pur- 
pose, and  so  we  are  necessitated  in  the  notice  we  take  of  them 
to  form  an  arrangement  of  our  own.  These  emotions,  like  the 
other  instruments  employed  by  God,  physical  and  moral,  con- 
template two  ends,  one  of  incitement  and  encouragement,  and 
another  of  restraint  and  arrest.  The  emotions  may  all  be  viewed 
under  this  double  aspect.  To  every  emotion  of  the  one  class, 
there  is  a  corresponding  emotion  of  the  other  class.     Thus — 

(1.)  Some  are  ixstigative,  and  others  arrestive  ;  (2.)  some 
are  adhesive,  and  others  repulsive  ;  (3.)  some  are  remunera- 
tive, and  others  punitive  ;  (4.)  some  are  responsive  to  joy, 
and  others  responsive  to  sorrow  ;  (5.)  some  raise  esthetic 
admiration,  others  a  sense  of  repugnance. 

I.  There  are  the  emotions  which  arise  from  the  contemplation 
of  possible  or  probable  evil  or  good,  they  are  the  Arrestive 
and  Instigative.  The  conception  of  evil,  as  about  to  come 
upon  us,  leads  to  apprehension,  fear,  dread,  terror,  according  to 
the  greatness  or  probability  of  the  evil.  This  is  in  itself  an  agi- 
tating frame  of  mind,  and  so  rouses  the  mind  from  lethargy ; 
and,  like  all  emotions,  it  quickens  the  train  of  thought  clustering 
round  the  object,  and  thus  suggests  means  of  escape  from  the 
apprehended  peril.  The  apprehension  of  good  as  about  to  be 
conferred,  on  the  other  hand,  leads  to  hope  and  expectation  ; 
and  the  buoyancy  of  spirit  produced  prompts  us  to  use  the 
means  required  in  order  to  procure  the  contemplated  good,  and 
helps  to  prepare  for  its  reception.  To  the  same  class  are  to  be 
referred,  as  partaking  of  the  nature  both  of  the  arrestive  and  in- 
stigative, those  emotions  of  astonishment,  surprise,  and  wonder 
which  arise  on  the  contemplation  of  new,  unexpected,  and  strange 
phenomena,  and  in  regard  to  which  the  mind  is  not  aware,  for  a 
time,  whether  they  may  be  for  good  or  evil.  The  emotions  now 
named  tend  to  summon  the  attention,  and  to  brace  the  mind  to 
meet  the  emergency.     We  owe  to  the  arrestive  feelings  much  of 


THE  EMOTIONS  AND  AFFECTIONS.  425 

the  caution  which  prevails  among  mankind,  with  all  the  hardy 
virtues  which  grow  upon  caution.  We  owe  to  the  instigative 
feelings  a  large  portion  of  human  energy  and  activity.  One- 
half  of  man's  exertions,  and  more  than  one-half  of  his  happiness, 
proceed  from  hope.  Where  there  is  hope,  there  will  generally 
he  some  life  ;  when  hope  ceases,  action  also  ceases.  God  in  his 
administration  employs  both  these  classes  of  emotions ;  by  the 
one,  he  can  cast  at  particular  times,  as  at  the  time  of  a  plague, 
for  instance,  a  gloom  accompanied  with  utter  helplessness  over 
the  minds  of  a  whole  community ;  and  by  the  other,  send  forth 
half  a  continent,  as  was  done  in  the  times  of  the  Crusades,  on 
some  great  enterprise. 

II.  There  are  those  which  arise  from  the  contemplation  of 
persons  and  objects  as  supposed  to  possess  good  qualities,  they 
are  the  Adhesive  and  Eepulsive.  In  such  cases  the  mind, 
experiences  a  delight  in  the  contemplation  of  the  object,  and 
specially  in  the  presence  of  the  object  as  fitted  to  make  that 
contemplation  more  vivid,  and  also  a  tendency  to  cling  to  that 
object.  Opposed  to  these  feelings  we  have  another  class,  leading 
us  to  abhor  and  turn  away  from  certain  objects,  as  supposed  tc 
possess  evil  qualities  :  they  are  the  feelings  of  aversion  and 
hatred.  When  we  are  led  to  contemplate  persons  as  having 
conferred  favours  upon  us,  we  are  inclined  towards  them  by  a 
feeling  which,  if  not  gratitude,  (for  gratitude,  as  implying  wish, 
is  a  virtue,)  is  often  the  incentive  to  gratitude.  When  we  con- 
template them,  on  the  other  hand,  as  inflicting  injury  upon  us, 
we  are  led  to  repel  them  from  us  or  to  flee  from  them  :  and  the 
emotions  that  arise  are  anger,  indignation,  and  such-like  feelings, 
no  way  sinful  if  unaccompanied,  with  sinful  desires.  Every 
moralist  has  observed  how  admirable  the  provision  which  is 
made  through  these  instinctive  affections  for  the  instant  repul- 
sion, and  so  the  prevention  of  injuries.  The  feeling  arms  the 
mind  on  the  instant  with  weapons,  and  provides  it  with  resources 
to  check  or  throw  back  the  evil,  when  cool  reflection  might  be 
too  slow  or  too  feeble  in  its  operations.  It  has  often  been 
noticed,  as  another  beautiful  provision,  that  all  the  benign 
affections  are  pleasant  at  the  time,  while  all  the  malign  affections 
are  unpleasant ;  and  by  this  means,  as  well  as  by  many  others, 
God  would  lead  us  to  cherish  the  former,  and  to  expel  the  latter 
as  soon  as  possible.     Eevenge,  even  when  successful,  has  within 


426  THE  EMOTIONS  AND  AFFECTIONS. 

it  its  own  punishment — a  revenge  of  the  revenge.  The  Greeks 
represent  Medea  as  successful  in  wrapping  the  bride  of  whom 
she  was  jealous  in  a  burning  robe  ;  but,  to  show  the  nature  of 
her  enjoyment  in  consequence,  she  is  spoken  of  as  going  off  in  a 
chariot  of  serpents — no  unfit  emblem  of  the  feelings  which  ac- 
company gratified  resentment. 

III.  There  are  the  feelings  which  spring  up  on  the  contem- 
plation of  enjoyment  and  disappointment.  They  might  be 
called  the  remunerative  and  punitive,  provided  these  phrases 
could  be  used  as  implying  nothing  moral,  but  merely  as  indicat- 
ing that  these  emotions  are  the  results  of  steps  that  have  gone 
before.  They  are  the  emotions  which  arise  on  the  contemplation 
of  the  good  or  the  evil  as  already  attained.  They  are  such  emo- 
tions as  gladness,  joy,  and  complacency  on  the  one  hand,  and  grief 
and  depression  on  the  other.  They  compose  a  large  portion  of 
the  enjoyment  which  the  good,  so  long  expected,  it  may  be,  con- 
fers, and  a  large  portion  of  the  miseries  which  the  loss  entails. 
They  constitute  the  mental  elevation  and  the  mental  depression 
to  which  success  and  disappointment  conduct.  They  become,  in 
consequence,  among  the  most  potent  of  the  instruments  of  the 
Divine  government. 

IV.  There  are  the  emotions  which  beat  responsive  to  the 
joys  and  sorrows.  Man  is  so  constituted  that  he  experiences 
emotion  not  only  when  he  contemplates  good  and  evil  as  ac- 
cruing to  himself,  but  good  and  evil  as  accruing  to  others.  This 
is  one  of  the  most  beneficent  parts  of  his  constitution.  This 
sympathy  is  a  powerful  means  of  lessening  sorrow  and  increasing 
happiness.  "  A  friend,"  says  Jeremy  Taylor,  "  shares  my  sorrow, 
and  makes  it  but  a  moiety ;  but  he  swells  my  joy,  and  makes  it 
double.  For  so  two  channels  divide  the  river  and  lessen  it  into 
rivulets,  and  make  it  fordable,  and  apt  to  be  drunk  up  at  the 
first  revels  of  the  Syrian  star  ;  but  two  torches  do  not  divide  but 
increase  the  flame ;  and  though  my  tears  are  the  sooner  dried 
up,  when  they  run  upon  my  friend's  cheeks  in  the  furrows  of 
compassion,  yet  when  my  flame  hath  kindled  his  lamp,  we 
unite  the  glories,  and  make  them  radiant  like  the  golden  candle- 
sticks that  burn  before  the  throne  of  God,  because  they  shine  by 
numbers,  by  unions,  and  confederations  of  light  and  joy."  It 
is  a  bountiful  provision  that  in  ordinary  cases  sympathy  with 
sorrow  is  vastly  more  intense  than  sympathy  with  joy.     The 


THE  EMOTIONS  AND  AFFECTIONS.  427 

joy  can  do  with  or  without  the  sympathy,  but  the  sorrow  needs 
and  demands  the  sympathy  to  alleviate  the  grief,  or  stir  up 
action  which  may  remove  the  cause  of  it. 

V.  There  are  the  esthetic  feelings,  whether  of  admira- 
tion or  aversion.    The  love  of  the  beautiful,  of  the  picturesque 
and  sublime,  does  not  seem  to  be  very  strong  or  sensitive  in  rude 
states  of  society  or  in  uncultivated  minds.     To  such,  the  taste, 
if  keen  and  active,  must  have  been  a  source  of  pain  more  than 
of  pleasure,  for  there  could  have  been  little  time  for  its  gratifi- 
cation.    Still,  even  to  such,  there  are  scenes  and  objects  which 
possess  a  deep  interest — such  as  the  grassy  slope,  the  fertile 
plain,  the  flowing  river,  and  the  cheerful  and  smiling  counte- 
nance.    But  among  persons  blessed  with  leisure  and  learning, 
this  affection  becomes  very  powerful,  and  embraces  a  far  wTider 
range  of  objects.     As  the  order  that  is  in  nature  leads  us  to  put 
trust  in  it,  so  these  aesthetic  emotions  lead  us  to  love  it,  to  delight 
in  it ;  and  we  become  attached  to  certain  objects,  animate  and 
inanimate,  because  of  the  feelings  which  they  raise  up  in  our 
bosoms.     It  is  pleasant  to  observe  that,  while  there  is  a  general 
correspondence  of  taste  among  all,  there  are  important  differ- 
ences, inasmuch  as  different  individuals  admire  different  objects. 
Opposed  to  the  emotions  of  admiration,  there  seem  to  be  feel- 
ings of  repugnance  ;  but  these  latter  are  comparatively  weak, 
and  seem  to  be  intended  to  keep  us  from  dwelling  amid  the 
more  ignoble  and  deleterious  parts  of  nature.     The  feelings  of 
admiration,  on  the  other  hand,  tend  to  make  us  observe  and 
linger  among  the  more  important  works  of  G-od,  and  are  one 
most  powerful  means  of  leading  mankind  to  cultivate  a  pro- 
priety and  decorum  of  demeanour* 

But  we  cannot  understand  the  nature  of  the  affections  and 
passions  by  merely  looking  at  the  individual  emotions.  One  of 
the  most  wonderful  characteristics  of  the  emotions,  in  our  ap- 
prehension, is  their  power  over  the  train  of  thought.  The  affec- 
tions and  passions  do  not  consist  so  much  of  single  emotions,  as 
of  trains  of  emotions,  or  of  trains  of  thought,  all  of  an  emotional 
kind.  The  pleasing  affections  consist  of  a  succession  of  ripples, 
the  passions  of  a  succession  of  gusts  and  waves  ;  and  in  both 
there  is  apt  to  be  a  tidal  ebb  and  flow.     Whenever  the  mind  is 

*  A  full  enumeration  of  the  emotions  should  include  at  this  place  the  Moral 
Emotions ;  but  these  have  been  discussed  in  a  previous  chapter,  (pp  302-306.) 


428  THE  EMOTIONS  AND  AFFECTIONS. 

deeply  moved,  there  is  a  tumult  of  thoughts  and  feelings,  crowd- 
ing like  a  mob  round  a  point;  and  yet  often,  like  that  mob, 
scarcely  able  to  tell  what  is  bringing  them  together.  It  is  this 
tendency  to  run  in  a  train  which  renders  these  emotions  amonsr 
the  chief  sources  of  human  happiness  and  human  misery,  and 
about  the  highest  reward  of  the  well-regulated,  and  the  most 
fearful  punishment  of  the  ill-regulated  mind. 

We  have  entered  so  far  upon  the  examination  of  the  emotions, 
to  show  how  fitted  they  are  to  become  instruments  of  govern- 
ment. Like  aeriform  bodies,  they  are  elastic — admitting  ot 
great  extension,  and  great  compression  ;  and  also  all-penetrat- 
ing, and  admitting  of  great  rapidity  of  action.  They  are  seen 
to  be  especially  powerful,  when  we  reflect  that  God  can  employ 
the  physical  world,  in  correspondence  with  these  internal  feel- 
ings, to  turn  mankind  as  he  pleases,  in  spite  of  their  rebellion 
and  folly. 

But  we  must  be  careful,  in  speaking  of  these  emotions  or 
affections,  to  distinguish  between  them  and  the  attached  consent, 
wishes,  and  volitions  of  the  mind.  These  emotions  do  commonly 
lead  to  wishes  and  desires ;  but  wishes  and  desires  are  always 
something  more  than  mere  emotions,  and  may  be  virtuous  or 
vicious,  which  mere  emotions  never  are  in  themselves.  And 
this  distinction  enables  us  to  settle  the  question,  so  often  dis- 
cussed, as  to  the  virtuousness  or  the  sinfulness  of  the  natural 
affections.  None  of  them  is  either  the  one  or  the  other  in  itself; 
nor  can  there  be  any  moral  element,  till  they  stir  up  desire,  or 
at  least  secure  the  consent  of  the  will.  Do  our  attachments 
lead,  as  they  are  intended,  to  true  benevolence  ? — then  the 
complex  affection  is  virtuous ;  but  it  is  so  because  it  contains 
benevolence.  Do  the  repulsive  passions  stir  up,  as  they  too 
frequently  do  in  man's  disordered  nature,  revengeful  wishes  ? 
— then  they  become  sinful  from  that  instant.  In  every  case, 
the  moral  good  or  the  evil  lies  not  in  the  affection  itself,  but  in 
its  accompanying  desire  or  volition.  So  far  as  the  emotions  are 
disconnected  with  virtuous  or  sinful  wishes  and  voluntary  de- 
terminations, they  have  no  moral  character  whatever,  but  are 
mere  instruments  employed  in  the  Divine  administration.  Yet 
how  much  of  human  virtue,  so  called,  consists  in  the  mere  pos- 
session of  the  benign  emotions  !  Alas  !  how  much  of  moral  evil, 
properly  so  called,  consists  in  the  abuse  of  these  parts  of  our 


GOVERNING  PRINCIPLES  THAT  ARE  EVIL.  429 

admirable  constitution  !  Indeed  all  actual  sin  seems  to  consist 
in  voluntarily  allowing,  following,  or  exciting  motive  principles 
condemned  in  that  particular  exercise  by  the  law  of  God.* 


SECT.  III. — GOVERNING  PRINCIPLES  THAT  ARE  EVIL. 

We  are  now  entering  on  topics  of  considerable  difficulty  and 
delicacy.  Some  sensitive  minds  shrink  from  the  anatomy  to 
which  we  are  to  subject  human  motives,  and  the  manner  in 
which,  in  our  dissection,  we  must  lay  bare  the  muscles  and 
organs  of  human  life.  But  bold  spirits  have  entered  this  region, 
and  drawn  from  it  the  most  pernicious  doctrine,  and  we  must 
follow  them,  were  it  only  to  counteract  the  evil  nse  which  they 
have  made  of  their  observations. 

In  this  inquiry,  great  care  must  be  taken,  first,  not  to  make 
God  chargeable  with  the  evil  principles,  which  serve  a  useful 
purpose  in  the  government  of  the  world  ;  and,  secondly,  to  show, 
that  though  there  may  be  beneficial  ends  served  by  the  sinful 
affection  or  principle,  the  guilt  of  the  agent  is  not  thereby 
diminished. 

There  is  a  constant  tendency  in  the  present  day  to  fall  into 
the  latter  of  these  errors.  Crimes  are  discovered  to  be  links  in 
the  chain  of  causes  on  which  hang  good,  and  glorious  results ; 
and,  in  approving  of  the  issue,  historians  have  sometimes  been 
inclined  to  justify  all  the  steps  which  have  led  to  it,  One  class 
of  writers,  delighted  with  the  order,  the  peace,  and  physical 
comfort  found  under  some  despotical  governments,  have  been 
led  to  transfer  their  praises  to  the  very  acts  of  tyranny  and 

*  Certain  moralists  have  got  themselves  confused  hi  their  estimate  of  man,  by 
observing  that  moral  evil  lies  in  the  abuse  of  principles  good  in  themselves.  They 
give  to  man  all  the  credit  of  the  good  principle,  and  excuse  the  evil  on  the  ground 
that  the  motive  principle  in  itself  is  goo  1.  But  they  forget  that  the  instinctive 
principles  of  action,  while  good  in  this  sense,  that  they  Lave  a  beneficial  tendency, 
do  not  imply  any  moral  good  on  the  part  of  the  possessor,  unless  a  good  action  of 
the  will  has  attached  itself  to  them.  The  sin  consists  in  an  act  of  the  will  per- 
mitting or  causing  that  which  God  has  made  good  to  become  evil.  It  has  been 
said  that  man  cannot,  in  his  greatest  violence  of  wickedness,  desire  moral  evil  as 
moral  evil,  but  for  some  ulterior  end.  Be  it  so,  that  God  has  so  fenced  human 
nature  by  this  limitation  of  instinctive  motive  principles,  it  is  certain  that  man 
does  all  he  can  in  wickedness,  for  he  allows  and  chooses  moral  evil,  knowing  it  to 
be  evil,  as  a  means  of  gratifying  inferior  motives. 


430  GOVERNING  PRINCIPLES  THAT  ARE  EVIL. 

cruelty  which  have  been  instrumental  in  producing  such  bless- 
ings. Another  class,  observing  how  political  convulsions  have 
led  to  great  social  improvements,  have  been  tempted  to  excuse 
the  pretension,  deceit,  and  violence  employed  to  ferment  the 
popular  mind.  Some  of  those  writers  who  profess  to  be  elevated 
above  all  prejudice,  in  the  way  of  showing  their  affected  candour, 
have  allowed  the  issue  of  actions  to  influence  their  moral  senti- 
ments, and  have  forgotten  that  virtue  is  virtue,  and  that  vice 
is  vice,  independently  of  the  incidental  results  flowing  from 
them.  Literature  is  never  engaged  in  a  work  more  unbecoming 
its  high  functions,  than  when  it  is  shedding  a  halo  around  suc- 
cessful crime,  or  disparaging  the  excellence  of  humble  and  un- 
successful merit.  Arnold  asks  "whether  the  Christian  ever  feels 
more  keenly  awake  to  the  purity  of  the  spirit  of  the  gospel,  than 
when  he  reads  the  history  of  crimes  related  with  no  sense  of 
their  evil."  Never  is  history  fulfilling  its  high  office  so  appro- 
priately as  when  it  is  stripping  splendid  vice  of  its  false  colours, 
and  calling  attention  to  the  flower  which  would  otherwise  bloom 
in  the  shade,  unnoticed  by  the  vulgar  eye. 

But  while  history  and  philosophy  must  specially  guard  against 
the  prepossessions  which  fortune  instils,  they  are  most  assuredly 
at  liberty  to  contemplate  and  to  weigh  the  good  effects  which 
will  at  times  flow  from  actions  evil  in  themselves.  While  they 
denounce  in  no  measured  language  the  perpetrators  of  the 
crimes,  let  them  praise  the  administration  of  God,  who  can 
bring  good  out  of  evil,  and  control  such  rebellious  elements. 
Meanwhile,  we  observe  what  is  the  nature  of  the  pillars  on 
which  the  world  destined  to  destruction  is  supported,  and  what 
fearful  effects  must  follow  when  God's  purposes  are  finished 
with  them,  and  these  pillars  are  taken  down. 

(1.)  Attention  was  called,  in  a  former  section,  to  the  beneficial 
effects  following  from  the  intuitive  desires,  which  are  neither 
virtuous  nor  vicious  in  themselves.  Let  us  now  contemplate 
the  results  when  these  principles  are  abused  and  become  vicious. 

In  themselves,  all  the  actions  which  proceed  from  such  per- 
verted desires  are  evil.  No  attempt  should  be  made  to  defend 
them  on  the  ground  of  their  consequences.  To  palliate  them  is 
to  palliate  sin.  To  approve  of  them  is  to  partake  of  their  guilt. 
Yet  every  one  sees,  that  in  this  sinful  world  there  are  certain 
effects  which  are  good  in  themselves,  following  from  vanity  and 


GOVERNING  PRINCIPLES  THAT  ARE  EVIL.  431 

ambition.  Take  away  these  incentives  to  action,  and  it  is  im- 
possible to  calculate  how  much  earthly  excellence  would  be 
taken  away,  or  rather  to  say  how  little  would  remain.  "  All 
the  works  of  human  industry  are,  in  a  great  measure,  referable 
to  ambition  of  some  sort,  that,  however  humble  it  may  seem  to 
minds  of  prouder  views,  is  yet  relatively  as  strong  as  the  ambition 
of  the  proudest.  We  toil  that  we  may  have  some  little  influence, 
or  some  little  distinction,  however  small  the  number  of  our  in- 
feriors may  be."*  We  are  not  denying  the  existence  of  genuine 
philanthropy  ;  it  requires,  however,  but  a  very  little  acquaintance 
with  the  lives  of  poets,  statesmen,  artists,  warriors,  and  philoso. 
phers  too,  to  gather  from  the  motives  which  they  avow,  that, 
but  for  the  praise  of  men,  and  the  influence  expected  to  be 
obtained,  they  would  not  have  made  such  sacrifices  or  practised 
such  self-denial,  and  the  world  would  not  have  reaped  from 
their  labours  the  benefit  which  has  accrued. 

The  advantages  arising  from  frugality,  and  this  even  when  it 
assumes  the  form  of  avarice,  have  been  pointed  out  by  the  father 
of  political  economy.  "  Parsimony,"  he  says,  "  by  increasing  the 
fund  which  is  destined  for  the  maintenance  of  productive  hands, 
tends  to  increase  the  number  of  those  hands,  whose  labour  adds 
to  the  value  of  the  subject  on  which  it  is  bestowed.  It  tends, 
therefore,  to  increase  the  exchangeable  value  of  the  annual  pro- 
duce of  the  land  and  labour  of  the  country.  It  puts  into  motion 
an  additional  quantity  of  industry,  which  gives  an  additional 
value  to  the  annual  produce/'f  Such  are  its  effects  in  an 
economic  point  of  view  ;  and  its  influence  in  spreading  a  spirit  of 
caution,  prudence,  industry,  temperance,  and  foresight,  through- 
out a  community,  are  not  less  salutary.  The  virtues  of  poorer 
nations,  and  of  the  labouring  classes,  are  all  intimately  connected 
with  that  frugality  on  which  parents  set  so  high  a  value,  and 
which  they  are  accustomed  to  recommend  to  their  children. 

But  it  has  not  been  observed  by  Dr.  Adam  Smith,  that  in  the 
overruling  providence  of  God  beneficial  effects  also  follow  from 
the  opposite  spirit,  that  of  prodigality.  "  It  is  quite  obvious," 
says  Malthus,  "  that  the  principle  of  saving  pushed  to  excess 
would  destroy  the  motive  to  production.  If  every  person  were 
satisfied  with  the  simplest  food,  the  poorest  clothing,  and  the 
meanest  houses,  it  is  certain  that  no  other  sort  of  food  and 
*  Brown's  Lectures,  Lect.  Ixviii.  t  Wealth  of  Nations,  B.  III.  c,  iii. 


432  GOVERNING  PRINCIPLES  THAT  ARE  EVIL. 

clothing  would  be  in  existence  ;  and  as  there  would  be  no  ade- 
quate motive  to  the  proprietors  of  land  to  cultivate  well,  not  only 
the  wealth  derived  from  convenience  and  luxuries  would  be  quite 
at  an  end,  but,  if  the  same  divisions  of  land  continued,  the  pro- 
duction of  food  would  be  prematurely  checked,  and  population 
would  come  to  a  stand,  long  before  the  soil  had  been  culti- 
vated."* It  has  not  been  observed,  either  by  Smith  or  Malthus, 
that  it  is  by  the  free  operation  of  both  that  national  wealth  is 
promoted.  Tbe  latter,  indeed,  speaks  of  an  intermediate  point, 
at  which  the  "  encouragement  to  the  increase  of  wealth  is  the 
greatest."  But  truly  it  is  not  by  this  happy  medium  that  the 
economic  prosperity  of  a  nation  is  fostered,  so  much  as  by  giving 
full  liberty  to  both  extremes ;  and  the  issue  is,  that  capital  is 
accumulated  by  the  frugality  of  one  section  of  the  community, 
and  is  again  lavished  on  productive  labour  by  the  prodigality 
of  another.  These  centripetal  and  centrifugal  forces  are  held  in 
balance  by  the  nice  arrangements  of  the  providence  of  God,  and 
according  as  the  one  or  other  prevails,  so  is  the  path  which  a 
nation  describes — so  is  it  planet-like  or  comet-like  in  its  orbit. 
We  see  how  a  nation  may  owe  its  commercial  and  political  pro- 
sperity, not  so  much  to  the  wisdom  of  its  statesmen  or  citizens, 
as  to  the  skilful  adjustments  of  the  government  of  God. 

These  remarks  apply  to  the  abuse  of  all  the  instinctive  springs 
of  action  in  the  human  breast,  and  it  is  not  needful  to  treat  of 
them  in  order.  The  love'  of  society,  for  example,  while  it 
encourages  extravagance,  and  often  leads  to  bankruptcy,  gives 
rise  meanwhile  to  those  pleasing  qualities  which  are  expressively 
called  social.  The  ages  and  nations  which  have  been  most 
addicted  to  sociality,  as  England  in  the  reign  of  Charles  II.,  and 
France  in  the  reign  of  Louis  XIV.,  have  also  been  characterized 
by  their  politeness,  and  the  flow  of  pleasing  conversation. 

(2.)  Nay,  there  are  incidental  advantages  springing  from  the 
malignant  passions,  under  some  of  the  aspects  in  which  they 
present  themselves.  No  doubt,  these  passions  would  be  on- 
mingled  evils  in  a  world  in  which  sin  was  otherwise  unknown. 
In  the  actual  world  they  are  also  evils ;  but  then,  to  keep 
wickedness  from  becoming  intolerable,  the  evils  are  made  to 
counteract  each  other,  as,  in  another  departmeat  of  God's  works, 
one  species  of  insect  and  wild  beast  is  made  to  destroy  another. 

*  Political  Economy,  p.  S. 


GOVERNING  PRINCIPLES  THAT  ARE  EVIL.  433 

In  a  world  in  which  intentional  ill-usage  and  injustice  were 
unknown,  the  passions  of  anger  and  resentment  would  have  been 
useless,  or  worse  than  useless.  But  it  cannot  be  denied,  that  in 
the  real  world  the  resentful  passions  are  often  the  means  of 
scaring  persons  from  the  infliction  of  injury,  when  higher  prin- 
ciple could  have  accomplished  no  such  end.  Full  of  injustice  as 
this  world  is,  insults  and  injuries  would  have  been  much  more 
frequent,  but  for  the  instinctive  passion  which  is  ready  to  rise  up 
and  redress  the  wrong.  Sinful  though  private  feuds,  duels,  and 
the  majority  of  wars  have  been,  it  is  evident,  notwithstanding, 
that  they  have  been  the  means  of  checking  other  evils  which 
would  have  spread  inextricable  disorder  throughout  society. 
True  it  is  that  this  circumstance  does  not  lessen  the  sinfulness  of 
the  evil  passion,  nor  does  it  show  that  other  and  innocent  and 
far  more  effectual  restraints  might  not  have  been  laid  on  these 
evils,  than  are  laid  by  instruments  which  in  themselves  are  evil ; 
yet  it  proves,  that  while  the  government  of  God  does  not 
create  either  evil,  it  uses  one  evil  to  restrain  another. 

W«  have  often  been  struck,  in  reading  the  narrative  of  the 
Old  Testament,  to  find  one  wicked  man  employed  to  punish 
another.  This  feature  of  the  Divine  government  comes  out, 
very  6trikingly,  in  the  declining  age  of  the  history  of  the 
Hebrews,  and  more  particularly  of  the  ten  tribes.  Jeroboam  is 
employed  to  punish  the  house  of  David  ;  Omri,  in  a  later  age,  is 
raiaed  up  to  punish  the  house  of  Jeroboam ;  while  Jehu  appears 
at  mi  opportune  time,  to  avenge  the  evil  wrought  by  Omri  and 
his  descendant  Ahab.  The  method  is  observable  throughout  the 
whDle  economy  of  God's  providence,  as  revealed  in  the  sacred 
volume.  Egypt,  Nineveh,  Babylon,  and  Persia,  are  made  the 
instruments  of  punishing  the  Jews,  and  themselves  are  punished 
for  the  evil  which  they  wrought.  We  have  at  times  wondered 
at  this,  and  felt  as  if  there  was  something  in  it  which  seemed  to 
reflect  on  the  Divine  government.  But  then,  we  observe  the 
same  method  in  operation  in  the  world  around  us  ;  and  we  have 
only  to  consider,  that  as  God  is  no  way  participating  in  the  guilt 
of  parties  who  are  left  entirely  to  their  own  freedom,  so  he  is  no 
way  implicated  in  their  conduct  by  the  use  to  which  he  turns  it. 

Envy  itself,  though  among  the  basest  and  most  malignant  of 
human  passions,  has  served  certain  purposes  of  restraint.  Not 
that  we  would  excuse,  much  less  defend,  this  mean  passion.     It 

2  E 


434  GOVERNING  PRINCIPLES  THAT  ARE  EVIL. 

withers  under  the  sunshine  of  another's  prosperity,  and  ever 
springs  up  most  luxuriantly  upon  decayed  fortunes,  and  the 
wrecks  of  blasted  reputations.  It  wounds,  with  its  serpent 
tongue,  the  very  fairest  forms  of  earthly  greatness.  The  lovelier 
the  flower,  it  is  the  more  eager  to  light  upon  it.  Yet  it  cannot 
be  doubted  that,  evil  as  it  is,  it  has  counteracted  evils  which 
would  otherwise  have  hurried  away  individuals  and  society  at 
large  into  the  extremest  folly.  There  is  ground  for  the  name 
which  Crabbe  represents  flattery  as  giving  to  it  when  he  calls  it 
"virtue's  jealous  friend."  It  is  a  means  of  checking  the  love  of 
fame  on  the  part  of  individuals,  and  of  the  admiration  of  great 
men  on  the  part  of  the  public,  when  these  might  become  ex- 
cessive. It  may  be  argued,  too,  that  without  such  a  principle 
operating  as  a  check,  the  vain,  the  forward,  and  the  audacious, 
would,  by  means  of  hypocrisy  and  pretence,  delude  mankind  into 
the  greatest  extravagance  and  follies.  It  would  be  vastly  better, 
no  doubt,  that  these  pretensions  were  checked  by  the  good  sense 
and  high  moral  feeling  of  the  community;  but  in  the  absence  of 
these,  envy  has  been  serviceable  in  accomplishing  the  same  end. 
Of  use  in  detecting  simulated,  it  is  also  of  service  in  increasing 
real  excellence  ;  and  it  makes  the  truly  great  man  still  greater, 
inasmuch  as  it  compels  him  to  cultivate  habitual  circumspection, 
and  prompts  to  farther  exertion  when  he  might  be  induced  to 
give  himself  over  to  indolence,  as  the  gadfly  buzzing  round  the  ox 
rouses  him  from  his  lethargy,  when  he  would  recline  too  long 
under  the  shade.  It  is  not  unworthy  of  being  observed,  that 
those  who  have  their  character  fully  established  rise  at  last  far 
above  the  reach  of  detraction.  The  great  man  is  like  the  lumi- 
nary of  day,  which,  as  it  circles  above  the  horizon,  pales  the  wax 
tapers  which  before  shed  their  feeble  light ;  for  a  time  they  cast 
their  blackening  shadows;  but  as  he  rises  higher  and  higher,  all 
the  shadows  vanish.  Some  persons  may  be  inclined  farther  to 
assert,  that  envy  is  so  far  advantageous,  inasmuch  as,  attacking 
only  prosperity,  "while  misery  passed  unstung  away,"*  it  so  far 
equalizes  the  inequalities  of  external  fortune. 

There  is  no  one  who  does  not  lament  the  prevalence  of  evil- 
speaking  under  its  various  forms.  Every  one  has  seen  its  fatal 
effects,  for  it  reigns  among  all  classes,  from  our  rural  districts 
and  retired  hamlets,  up  to  the  circles  of  the  nobility  and  the 

*  Crabbe. 


GOVERNING  PRINCIPLES  THAT  ARE  EVIL.  435 

court  of  the  sovereign.  Yet  who  can  tell  how  many  incipient 
vices  have  been  checked  by  this  scandal,  or  the  salutary  dread  of 
it  ?  In  this  wicked  world,  it  sometimes  serves  the  same  purpose 
as  those  insects  which  are  the  scavengers  of  nature — it  prevents 
society  from  becoming  intolerably  corrupt  and  putrid.  It  would 
be  infinitely  better,  no  doubt,  could  mankind  be  induced  to  avoid 
the  appearance  of  evil  through  a  becoming  fear  of  the  evil  itself, 
or  by  a  discerning  and  wholesome  tone  of  public  sentiment ;  but 
when  these  are  wanting,  jealousy  may  serve  a  good  end,  even 
when  it  is  far  from  being  pure  in  its  motives,  or  select  in  the 
means  which  it  employs.  Meanwhile,  the  virtuous  man  must 
be  deterred  from  the  evil  by  higher  principles,  and  be  on  his 
guard  against  countenancing  the  scandal,  even  when  he  sees 
that  beneficial  effects  may  be  produced  by  it. 

Another  subject  of  general  lamentation  is  the  evil  produced 
by  party  spirit  in  politics  and  religion.  Lord  Brougham,  in  a 
well-known  passage,  supposes  all  the  statesmen  of  last  century 
arranged  before  us  as  in  a  picture-gallery,  and  a  stranger  coming 
to  survey  them.  "  Here,"  would  that  stranger  say,  "  stand  the 
choicest  spirits  of  their  age,  the  greatest  wits,  the  noblest  orators, 
the  wisest  politicians,  and  the  most  illustrious  patriots."  "  Here 
stand  all  these  '  lights  of  the  world  and  demigods  of  fame  ;'  but 
here  they  stand,  not  ranged  on  one  side  of  this  gallery,  having 
served  a  common  country.  With  the  same  bright  object  in 
view,  their  efforts  were  divided,  not  united.  They  fiercely  com- 
bated with  each  other,  and  did  not  together  assail  the  common 
foe.  Their  great  exertions  were  bestowed,  their  more  than 
mortal  forces  were  expended,  not  in  furthering  the  general  good, 
not  in  resisting  their  country's  enemies,  but  in  conflicts  among 
themselves ;  and  all  their  triumphs  were  won  over  each  other, 
and  all  their  sufferings  were  endured  at  each  other's  hands." 
The  Kev.  J.  A.  James  quotes  this  passage,  and  adds,  that  the 
stranger,  in  surveying  the  portraits  of  our  theologians,  polemics, 
authors,  and  preachers,  would  be  compelled  to  endure  the  same 
painful  surprise,  and  indulge  in  the  same  sorrowful  reflections. 

And  no  one  should  allow  himself  to  palliate  this  spirit,  pro- 
ceeding from  the  most  selfish  and  ungenerous  feelings  in  the 
human  breast.  Nor  is  any  one  entitled  to  affirm  that,  though 
incidental  benefit  has  arisen  from  it,  far  higher  good  would  not 
have  sprung  from  the  cherishing  of  an  opposite  spirit.    It  could 


436  INFLUENCE  EXERCISED  BY  THESE  PRINCIPLES 

be  demonstrated,  we  think,  that  the  spirit  of  love  would  have 
produced  far  greater  good  than  the  spirit  of  party,  and  this  a 
good  unmixed  with  accompanying  evil.  Still,  we  must  shut 
our  eyes  to  facts  which  are  every  day  forcing  themselves  upon 
our  notice,  if  we  deny  that  in  the  existing  world,  partisanship 
in  politics,  and  sectarianism  in  religion,  have  been  made  to 
serve  important  purposes  in  the  prevention  of  evil,  and  the 
instigation  of  what  is  positively  good.  But  for  the  existence  of 
such  a  spirit,  patriotism  would  often  have  languished  and  died, 
and  persons  in  possession  of  power  would  have  been  allured 
onward  to  acts  of  most  atrocious  tyranny.  The  sifting  investi- 
gation to  which  public  measures  are  subjected,  arises  sometimes 
from  the  jealous  temper  with  which  parties  watch  each  other, 
rather  than  from  disinterested  patriotism.  The  history  of  the 
Church  shows  how  activity  among  the  clergy,  and  a  spirit  of 
reading,  inquiry,  and  reflection,  among  the  great  mass  of  the 
people,  have  been  produced  and  fostered  by  the  clashing  of 
opposing  sects,  when  deeper  principle  and  higher  feeling  might 
have  proved  utterly  ineffectual. 

SECT.  IV. INFLUENCE  EXERCISED  BY  THESE  PRINCIPLES  IN 

BIASSLNG  THE  CONSCIENCE. 

The  attention  of  the  philosophic  mind  of  modern  Europe  was 
first  called  to  the  class  of  phenomena  now  to  be  examined,  by 
Hume,  more  particularly  in  his  famous  Dialogue  appended  to 
the  Treatise  on  Virtue.  The  train  of  observation  has  been  fol- 
lowed, too,  by  Adam  Smith,  in  his  Theory  of  Moral  Sentiments7 
and  reappears  once  or  twice  in  his  Wealth  of  Nations.  It  is 
prosecuted  by  Macaulay,  with  his  usual  splendour  of  thought 
and  diction,  in  his  remarks  on  Macchiavelli,  and  is  fondly  dwelt 
on  by  several  other  writers  of  our  age. 

We  may  first  take  a  view  of  the  phenomena  noticed  by  these 
acute  writers,  and  then  point  out  the  proper  use  to  be  made  of 
them.  In  this,  as  in  many  other  particulars,  Hume  has  been 
guiding,  in  a  manner  much  to  be  deplored,  the  thinking  mind 
of  our  countrymen.  It  is  needful  to  rectify  the  conclusions 
rashly  drawn  from  a  class  of  facts,  the  existence  of  which  can- 
not be  denied. 

It  is  a  fact,  explain  it  as  we  please,  that  men's  moral  judg- 


IN  BIASSING  THE  CONSCIENCE.  437 

ments  are  swayed  by  the  supposed  beneficial  or  prejudicial  con- 
sequences of  actions.  The  mother  at  Athens  murdered  her 
child  rather  than  expose  it  through  life  to  poverty  and  growing 
hardship.  The  Indian  drowns  his  mother  in  the  Ganges,  the 
CafTre  exposes  her  by  some  fountain,  and  they  justify  their 
conduct  on  the  ground  that  it  is  better  she  should  thus  perish 
than  drag  out  a  protracted  life  of  misery.  The  Greeks  and 
Romans  defended  the  practice  of  suicide,  and  argued  that  life 
should  terminate  when  it  ceases  to  be  useful.  The  modern 
gentleman  thinks  it  nothing  improper  to  fight  a  duel,  and  tells 
us  that  it  is  only  by  such  a  practice  that  a  nice  sense  of  honour 
can  be  maintained.  The  Frenchman  of  the  days  of  Louis  XIV. 
prided  himself  on  his  gay  and  gallant  behaviour,  on  his  liberty 
or  licentiousness,  as  necessary  to  the  production  of  the  easy  and 
lively  manners  which  prevailed  at  that  period. 

Dr.  Adam  Smith,  opening  up  another  vein  in  the  same  mine, 
has  shown  how  fortune,  utility,  custom,  and  fashion,  have  all 
their  influence  on  the  sentiments  of  approbation  and  disappro- 
bation.* He  shows  how  the  "  effect  of  the  influence  of  fortune 
is  first  to  diminish  our  sense  of  the  merit  or  demerit  of  those 
actions  which  arise  from  the  most  laudable  or  blamable  inten- 
tions, when  they  fail  of  producing  their  proposed  effects  ;  and, 
secondly,  to  increase  our  sense  of  the  merit  or  demerit  of  actions, 
beyond  what  is  due  to  the  motives  or  affections  from  which 
they  proceed,  when  they  accidentally  give  occasion  either  to 
pleasure  or  pain."  "  The  superiority  of  virtues  and  talents  has 
not,  even  upon  those  who  acknowledge  that  superiority,  the 
same  effect  as  the  superiority  of  achievements."  "  The  agree- 
able or  disagreeable  effects  of  actions  often  throw  a  shadow  of 
merit  or  demerit  upon  the  agent,  though  in  his  intention  there 
was  nothing  that  deserved  either  praise  or  blame,  or  at  least 
that  deserved  them  in  the  degree  in  which  we  are  apt  to  bestow 
them.  Thus,  even  the  messenger  of  bad  news  is  disagreeable 
to  us,  and,  on  the  contrary,  we  feel  a  sort  of  gratitude  to  the 
man  who  brings  us  good  tidings."  He  shows  how  custom  and 
fashion  influence  our  moral  sentiments.  "  Those  who  have  been 
educated  in  what  is  really  good  compan)T,  not  what  is  commonly 
called  such,  who  have  been  accustomed  to  see  nothing  in  the 
persons  whom  they  esteemed  and  lived  with,  but  justice, 
*  See  Theory  of  Moral  Sentiments,  P.  ii.  sect,  iii.,  P.  iv.,  P.  v.  chap.  ii. 


43S  INFLUENCE  EXERCISED  BY  THESE  PRINCIPLES 

modesty,  humanity,  and  good  order,  are  more  shocked  with 
■whatever  seems  to  be  inconsistent  with  the  rules  which  these 
virtues  prescribe.  Those,  on  the  contrary,  who  have  had  the 
misfortune  to  be  brought  up  amidst  violence,  licentiousness, 
falsehood,  and  injustice,  lose,  though  not  all  sense  of  the  im- 
propriety of  such  conduct,  yet  all  sense  of  its  dreadful  enormity, 
or  of  the  vengeance  and  punishment  due  to  it."  "  In  certain 
ages,  as  in  those  of  Charles  II.,  a  degree  of  licentiousness  was 
associated  with  generositv.  sincerity,  magnanimitv,  and  lovaltv, 
while  correctness  of  demeanour  is  connected  with  cant,  cunning, 
hypocrisy,  and  low  manners.  Hence  the  vices  of  the  great 
come  to  be  copied,  as  associated  with  politeness,  elegance,  and 
generosity.  From  this  same  cause  proceed  those  requisitions 
which  we  make  in  reference  to  professional  character,  insisting 
on  a  clergyman  that  he  be  grave,  austere,  and  correct  ;  and 
reckoning  the  spirit  and  bravery  of  the  soldier  an  excuse  for  his 
licentiousness  and  dissipation.  The  relative  value  set  upon  vir- 
tues, and  the  disapprobation  of  vices,  among  different  classes  of 
society,  all  proceed  from  the  same  source.  Among  savages  and 
barbarians,  hardiness  or  superiority  to  fatigue  and  pain,  and  an 
affected  indifference  to  the  softer  feelings  and  sensibilities  of  the 
heart,  as  they  are  among  the  most  useful,  so  they  are  among 
the  most  exalted  of  the  virtues.  In  civilized  societies,  on  the 
other  hand,  the  virtues  of  humanity  are  more  respected,  and 
full  play  is  given  to  the  gentler  affections  of  the  heart.  Hence, 
too,  the  virtues  and  vices  that  are  characteristic  of  different 
ranks  of  life."  "The  vices  of  levity  are  always  ruinous  to  the 
common  people  ;  and  a  single  week's  thoughtlessness  and  dissi- 
pation is  often  sufficient  to  ruin  a  poor  workman  for  ever,  and 
to  drive  him,  through  despair,  upon  committing  the  most  enor- 
mous crimes.  The  wiser  and  better  sort  of  common  people, 
therefore,  have  always  the  utmost  abhorrence  of  the  vices  of 
levity  and  excess,  while  they  commend  the  strict  and  austere 
virtues.  On  the  other  hand,  among  the  upper  classes,  luxury, 
wanton  and  even  disorderly  mirth,  the  pursuit  of  pleasure  to 
some  degree  of  intemperance,  the  breach  of  chastity,  at  least  in 
one  of  the  two  sexes.  &c.3  as  being  less  ruinous,  are  treated  with 
a  good  deal  of  indulgence.'""1 

Mr.  Macaulay  has  avowedly  borrowed  from  the  Scotch  meta- 
-  Wealth  of  Nations,  Book  v.  cbap.  i. 


IN  BIASSING  THE  CONSCIENCE.  439 

physicians,  and  has  used  their  observations  to  explain  the  differ- 
ent standards  of  character  found  in  different  nations*  Among 
the  nations  north  of  the  Alps,  valour  was  absolutely  needful  in 
order  to  self-defence,  and  hence  courage  came  to  be  ranked 
among  the  highest  of  the  virtues,  and  was  supposed  to  excuse 
ambition,  rapacity,  and  cruelty — and  cowardice  to  be  branded 
with  the  foulest  reproach  ;  while  all  the  vices  belonging  to  timid 
dispositions,  such  as  fraud  and  hypocrisy,  hollow  friendship  and 
violated  faith,  came  to  be  objects  of  abhorrence.  Among  the 
Italians,  on  the  other  hand,  everything  was  done  by  superiority 
of  intelligence  ;  and  they  came  to  regard  with  lenity  those 
crimes  which  require  self-command,  address,  quick  observation, 
fertile  invention,  and  profound  knowledge  of  human  nature. 
Much  the  same  difference  seems  to  have  existed  between  the 
Greeks  and  Romans  in  the  ages  in  which  they  first  came  into 
contact — and  hence  the  contempt  which  each  party  felt  for  the 
virtues  which  the  other  commended.  "  Such,"  says  Mr.  Macau- 
lay,  "  are  the  opposite  errors  which  men  commit  when  their 
morality  is  not  a  science  but  a  taste,  when  they  abandon  eternal 
principles  for  accidental  associations." 

We  perceive  that,  in  a  recent  work,  the  same  general  obser- 
vation is  employed  to  explain  and  excuse  the  quibbling  of  the 
Greek  sophists — it  was  as  useful,  the  author  thinks,  as  the 
pleading  of  modern  barristers  ;  and  also  to  defend  that  under- 
stood principle  of  Greek  law  which  required  the  accuser  in  a 
criminal  case  to  avow  that  he  was  actuated  by  personal  feeling 
— it  was,  it  seems,  that  he  might  not  be  reckoned  an  officious 
informer.f 

Such  is  the  train  of  observation  pursued  at  length  by  these 
writers — very  much  to  the  disgust,  let  it  be  added,  of  many 
ingenuous  and  sincere  though  perhaps  over-sensitive  minds,  who 
feel  as  if  the  remarks  offered  were  intended  to  palliate  sin,  and 
remove  the  landmarks  which  separate  vice  from  virtue.  In  con- 
sequence of  the  use  which  has  thus  been  made  of  them,  many 
have  turned  away  with  as  much  loathing  as  George  III.  did 
from  everything  that  savours  of  Scotch  metaphysics. 

Still  it  cannot  be  doubted  that  the  above  are  real  phenomena. 
To  deny  them  is  to  refuse  to  hear  the  voice  of  history,  or  to 

*  Macaulay's  Essays — Macchiavelli. 

f  See  Lewes'  Biographical  History  of  Philosophy. 


440  INFLUENCE  EXERCISED  BY  THESE  PRINCIPLES 

open  our  eyes  on  the  scenes  which  are  constantly  pressing  them- 
selves on  the  attention.  We  cannot  avoid  observing  them,  but 
as  we  do  so,  let  us  endeavour  to  give  the  right  explanation,  and 
rescue  them  from  the  improper  use  made  of  them. 

Holding,  then,  as  we  do,  that  there  is  an  indelible  distinction 
between  virtue  and  vice,  we  maintain  that  there  could  have  been 
no  such  perversions  of  the  moral  faculty  in  a  mind  perfectly 
pure  and  spotless.  The  conscience  needs  only  to  be  enlightened 
and  enlivened  to  condemn  the  perversions  into  which  it  has 
fallen  in  its  state  of  deadness  and  ignorance.  Like  the  plaintiff 
who  appealed  from  Philip  inattentive  to  Philip  attentive,  we  can 
appeal  from  the  conscience  misled  to  the  conscience  rectified,  and 
the  latter  will  announce,  that  no  excuse  should  be  offered  for  the 
manner  in  which  it  has  been  perverted  under  the  influence  of 
sinful  and  blinding  passion  or  prejudice. 

In  a  former  chapter,  we  have  pointed  out  the  way  in  which 
the  conscience  is  deluded.  A  concrete  fact  is  presented  under  a 
partial  aspect,  and  it  pronounces  its  judgment  according  to  the 
representation  made  to  it.  This  representation,  or  rather  mis- 
representation, is  made,  directly  or  indirectly,  by  the  influence 
of  a  rebellious  will — the  true  seat  of  all  moral  evil.  It  is  only 
by  the  help  of  such  a  principle  that  we  can,  on  the  one  hand, 
uphold  the  rectitude  of  the  decisions  of  the  moral  faculty,  and, 
on  the  other  hand,  admit  that  in  fact  many  of  them  are  preju- 
diced and  perverted. 

There  is  abundant  room  for  the  interference  of  the  prejudices 
of  the  heart  in  the  representations  which  are  given  to  the  con- 
science of  our  own  actions  and  the  actions  of  our  neighbours, 
whenever  they  are  closely  connected  with  our  self-interest,  our 
favourite  habits,  our  social,  sympathetic,  and  benevolent  feelings. 
The  father,  unable  or  unwilling  to  support  the  child  who  is  yet 
beloved  of  him,  the  child  indisposed  to  expose  himself  to  priva- 
tions on  account  of  his  aged  parents,  will  lend  his  ear  to  those 
suggestions  which  would  allure  him  to  commit  an  act  which, 
when  regarded  under  a  particular  aspect,  may  seem  commend- 
able, but  which  the  mind  would  utterly  abhor,  if  discerned  under 
all  its  aspects.  That  it  is  really  such  a  prejudice  which  is  sway- 
ing the  judgment,  is  evident  from  the  circumstance,  that  in  those 
countries  in  which  females  are  disparaged,  children  of  that  sex, 
and  they  alone,  are  in  the  way  of  being  exposed.     We  see,  too, 


IN  BIASSING  THE  CONSCIENCE.  441 

how,  by  the  same  peculiarity  of  our  nature,  fortune  and  utility 
must  influence  the  moral  judgments.  The  fairer  features  of 
actions  useful  to  ourselves  or  others,  these,  and  these  alone,  are 
presented  to  the  mind,  which  proceeds  in  consequence  to  applaud 
the  actions.  Deeds  which  are  in  themselves  vicious  come  to  be 
popular,  and  regarded,  if  not  with  positive  commendation,  at 
least  without  any  abhorrence,  because  associated  with  certain 
pleasing  feelings  or  beneficial  results  which  have  flowed  from 
them.  All  this  does  not  show,  as  Hume  would  argue,  that  vir- 
tue consists  in  utility  ;  it  merely  shows  that  a  strong  feeling  of 
utility,  like  a  strong  feeling  of  passion,  may  influence  the  moral 
faculty,  and  make  it  pronounce  a  sentence  which  it  would  not 
have  pronounced  had  it  not  been  so  biassed. 

But  reprobating,  as  we  ever  must,  these  perversions  of  our 
moral  nature,  we  cannot  shut  our  eyes  to  the  fact,  that  they 
have  been  overruled  in  many  cases  so  as  to  bind  communities 
together.  Every  man  complains  of  the  influence  which  fortune, 
and  even  custom  and  fashion,  exercise  upon  the  moral  senti- 
ments ;  and  we  would  not  complain  of  these  complaints ;  they 
originate  in  the  moral  sense,  and  they  tend  most  effectually  to 
check  a  flagrant  sin.  But  while  the  influence  of  such  baser  con- 
siderations upon  the  sentiments  which  should  be  elevated  far 
above  them  is  in  itself  evil,  it  may  become  the  occasion  of  good. 
A  high  tone  of  moral  sentiment  in  a  community,  it  is  true, 
might  have  been  the  cause  of  infinitely  greater  good  ;  still  the 
good  which  can  be  brought  out  of  that  which  is  in  itself  evil,  is 
patent  to  all.  Adam  Smith*  has  a  whole  chapter  on  the  final 
cause  of  that  irregularity  in  man's  nature,  by  which  fortune 
comes  to  influence  our  sentiments  of  approbation  and  disappro- 
bation. "  Everybody  agrees  to  the  general  maxim,  that  as  the 
event  does  not  depend  on  the  agent,  it  ought  to  have  no  influ- 
ence upon  our  sentiments  with  regard  to  the  merit  or  propriety 
of  his  conduct.  But  when  we  come  to  particulars,  we  find  that 
our  sentiments  are  scarce,  in  one  instance,  exactly  conformable 
to  what  this  equitable  maxim  wTould  direct."  This  very  irregu- 
larity, he  proceeds  to  show,  has  promoted  the  welfare  of  the 
species  ;  he  -should  have  said,  in  the  absence  of  higher  principle, 
has  been  the  occasion  of  good.  "  Man  must  not  be  satisfied  with 
indolent  benevolence,  nor  fancy  himself  the  friend  of  mankind, 
*  Moral  Sentiments,  P.  ii.  sect  ii. 


442  INFLUENCE  EXERCISED  BY  THESE  PRINCIPLES 

because  in  his  heart  he  wishes  well  to  the  prosperity  of  the 
world."  "  Nature  has  taught  him,  that  neither  himself  nor  man- 
kind can  be  fully  satisfied  with  his  conduct,  nor  bestow  upon  it 
the  full  measure  of  applause,  unless  he  has  actually  produced 
the  ends  which  it  is  the  purpose  of  his  being  to  advance."  "  It 
is  even  of  considerable  importance,  that  the  evil  which  is  done 
without  design  should  be  regarded  as  a  misfortune  to  the  doer 
as  well  as  the  sufferer."  "  As  in  the  ancient  heathen  religion, 
that  holy  ground  which  had  been  consecrated  to  some  god  was 
not  to  be  trod  upon  but  upon  solemn  and  necessary  occasions, 
and  the  man  who  had  even  ignorantly  violated  it  became  piacu- 
lar  from  that  moment,  and,  until  proper  atonement  should  be 
made,  incurred  the  vengeance  of  that  powerful  and  invisible 
being  to  whom  it  had  been  set  apart ;  so,  by  the  wisdom  of  na- 
ture, the  happiness  of  every  innocent  man  is  in  the  same  manner 
rendered  holy,  consecrated  round  about  against  the  approaches 
of  every  other  man,  not  to  be  wantonly  trod  upon,  not  even  to 
be  in  any  respect  ignorantly  and  involuntarily  violated,  without 
requiring  some  atonement  in  proportion  to  the  greatness  of  such 
undesigned  violation." 

From  the  same  irregularity,  or,  as  we  would  rather  call  it, 
perversion  of  sentiment,  there  proceeds  the  excessive  regard  paid 
by  certain  individuals,  or  by  certain  grades  of  society,  ages,  or 
nations,  to  those  virtues  which  happen  to  chime  in  with  the  pre- 
vailing tastes,  or  to  be  immediately  subservient  to  the  interests 
of  the  parties.  Prudence,  outward  decency,  and  caution,  a  spirit 
of  frugality  and  industry,  come  to  be  commended  among  certain 
classes,  as  if  they  were  all  that  was  required  to  render  the  pos- 
sessor's character  pleasing  in  the  sight  of  God  ;  while,  in  other 
grades  of  life,  a  spirit  of  liberality  and  courage  is  supposed  to 
make  atonement  for  every  vice.  Hence,  too,  the  popularity 
which  attaches  to  certain  qualities  which  are  evil  in  themselves, 
because  supposed  to  be  the  concomitants,  and  therefore  the  indi- 
cations, of  pleasing  or  useful  virtues.  While  we  cannot,  without 
partaking  of  the  sin,  commend  this  spirit,  we  may  observe  how 
it  has  been  one  great  means  of  fostering  the  temperance,  the 
frugality,  and  the  industry  which  so  distinguish  certain  walks  of 
life,  and  the  spirit  of  generosity  and  valour,  the  chivalry,  the 
romance,  and  heroism  which  have  been  so  beneficial  in  certain 
stages  of  society.     We  may  deplore  the  absence  of  higher  and 


IN  BIASSING  THE  CONSCIENCE.  443 

deeper  principle  ;  but  we  cannot  help  admiring,  that  in  the 
absence  of  such,  the  world  is  kept  from  sinking  into  intolerable 
degradation,  and  helped  forward  in  the  onward  march  of  civili- 
sation, by  evils  being  made  to  counteract  prevailing  evils,  and 
harmony  being  produced  by  notes  in  themselves  discordant. 

Having  resolved  these  phenomena  into  the  perversions  of  con- 
science, we  are  enabled  to  class  along  with  them,  and  under  the 
same  head,  those  superstitious  fears  which  have  exercised  so  ex- 
tensive a  power  upon  mankind.  A  superstitious  terror  has  been 
the  means  of  restraining  multitudes  from  crime,  when  love  to  God 
or  to  virtue  would  have  been  altogether  ineffectual.  Witches  and 
fairies,  ghosts  and  demons,  gods  and  goddesses,  the  penances  in- 
flicted by  the  priesthood,  and  the  terrors  brought  from  the  invi- 
sible world,  (we  allude,  of  course,  to  superstitious  terrors,)  have 
all  exercised  a  power  in  keeping  back  mankind  from  deeds  which 
would  have  proved  injurious  to  society.  The  peopling  of  the  air, 
the  streams,  and  the  woods,  with  supernatural  beings,  and  of  the 
darkness  with  ghosts,  has  deterred  from  the  commission  of  crime 
multitudes  who  could  not  have  been  awed  by  the  thought  of  an 
omnipresent  God.  Every  one  knows  how  dangerous  it  is,  so  far 
as  the  peace  of  society  is  concerned,  to  remove  even  a  false 
religion,  till  such  time  as  true  religion  has  taken  its  place ;  for,  in 
rooting  up  the  weed,  the  very  grain  may  be  torn  up  along  with  it. 
All  statesmen  have  now  come  to  see,  that  man  cannot  do  without 
a  religion.  It  has  often  been  said,  that  the  very  worst  governments 
are  better  than  no  government:  and  a  precisely  analogous  maxim 
seems  now  to  be  adopted  in  regard  to  religion,  that  the  very  worst 
religions  are  better,  so  far  as  the  peace  of  society  is  concerned, 
than  none.  Legislators  have  thence  leapt  to  the  conclusion,  that 
the  state  should  countenance  every  religion  ;  but  this  reasoning 
proceeds  on  the  perilous  fallacy  that  virtue  consists  in  utility,  and 
that  virtues  and  vices  pass  into  each  other  byinsensible  gradations. 
A  higher  and  juster  view  of  the  nature  of  virtue,  and  of  the 
essential  difference  between  it  and  vice,  would  lead  to  the  very 
different  conclusion : — that,  though  under  obligation  to  tolerate 
a  religion  believed  to  be  false,  we  are  not  at  liberty  directly  to 
countenance  it  in  any  circumstances,  nor  to  any  extent,  without 
contracting  a  far  greater  amount  of  guilt  than  those  who  sin- 
cerely, though  ignorantly,  are  the  votaries  of  the  mistaken  faith. 

Here  the  remark  is  forced  upon  us,  that  as  almost  all  changes 


444  ILLUSTRATIVE  NOTE. 

for  good  in  society  have  been  produced  by  men  of  earnestness 
and  sincerity,  as  Carlyle  has  shown,  so  it  cannot  be  expected  of 
the  legislators  and  philosophers  of  the  utility  school,  that  they 
should  turn  out  to  be  the  most  effective  agents  in  promoting  the 
utility  which  they  profess  so  much  to  esteem.  Their  principles 
will  lead  them  to  admire  martyrs,  but  not  themselves  to  become 
martyrs  ;  for  always,  when  the  establishment'  of  truth  seems  to 
be  impracticable,  they  will  be  tempted  to  yield  to  the  force  of 
circumstances.  They  who  are  under  the  influence  of  principles 
which  do  not  change  with  changing  circumstances,  are  the  parties 
who  make  circumstances  to  bend  before  the  energy  of  their 
will,  and  who  produce  all  those  revolutions  in  opinion,  in  senti- 
ment, and  in  action,  which  have  given  the  impulse  to  human 
improvement. 

Illustrative  Note  (g.)— HUMAN  VIRTUES  (SO  CALLED)  AND  VICES 
RUNiNING  INTO  EACH  OTHER. 

"There  is  not  on  earth,"  says  John  Foster,  "  a  more  capricious,  accommodating, 
or  abused  thing  than  conscience.  It  would  be  very  possible  to  exhibit  a  curious 
classification  of  consciences  in  genera  and  species.  What  copious  matter  for  specu- 
lation among  the  varieties  of— the  lawyer's  conscience,  cleric  conscience,  lay  con- 
science, lords'  conscience,  peasants'  conscience,  hermits'  conscience,  tradesmen's 
conscience,  philosophers'  conscience,  Christians'  conscience,  conscience  of  reason, 
conscience  of  faith,  healthy  man's  conscience,  sick  man's  conscience,  ingenious 
conscience,  simple  conscience,"  &c*  We  are  not  to  enter  into  this  wide  field  0/ 
curious  and  dark  tbough  not  uninstructive  speculation.  Having  given  the  general 
theory  to  account  for  them,  we  take  up  merely  some  points  illustrative  of  man's 
existing  state.  It  is  curious  to  observe  human  virtues  (so  represented  by  the 
conscience)  and  human  vices  growing  on  the  same  root. 

The  modern  French  novelist  is  accustomed  to  exert  all  his  startling  art  in  ex- 
hibiting the  growth  of  the  common  vices  under  fostering  circumstances.  A  child, 
who  never  knew  what  it  was  to  be  warmed  by  human  affection,  is  placed  in  circum- 
stances in  which  there  is  no  air  to  nourish  the  commonplace  virtues,  while  there  is 
a  feverish  encouragement  given  to  far  different  qualities.  Living  in  the  contempt 
of  the  ordinary  laws  of  morality,  the  child  springs  up  into  a  bold,  heroic,  and  gene- 
rous youth,  and  performs  deeds  which  command  our  admiration  ; — he  saves  the  life 
of  another  at  the  risk  of  his  own,  or  casts  his  protection  over  the  weak  and  help- 
less. No  doubt  he  has  a  bitter  antipathy  to  certain  individuals  ?ind  sections  of  the 
community ;  but  he  has  received  kindness  from  none,  and  has  been  treated  with 
cruel  scorn  and  injustice  by  thousands.  What  claim  has  society  upon  him,  except 
for  his  revenge,  on  account  of  the  multiplied  injuries  inflicted  upon  him?  His  vir- 
tues, set  off  by  the  meretricious  art  of  the  writer,  are  all  his  own ;  while  his  vices, 
his  fights,  his  robberies,  his  very  murders,  can  be  fairly  charged  upon  the  com- 
munity, rather  than  upon  himself  individually,  and  are  relieved  by  the  gallantry 
and  generosity  of  spirit  displayed  in  the  very  perpetration  of  them.     Or  it  is  a 

*  Memoirs. 


VIRTUES  AND  VICES  RUNNING  INTO  EACH  OTHER.  445 

lady  of  extreme  beauty  and  sensibility  who  is  made  to  flit  before  our  vision  ;  and 
■we  see  her  sacrificed  to  family  pride  or  avarice,  and  bound  to  a  husband  whom  she 
cannot  love.  An  attachment  springs  up  involuntarily  in  her  breast  towards  a  youth 
of  daring  courage  and  the  gentlest  generosity,  who  comes  accidentally  in  her  way, 
and  reciprocates  her  affection.  Resolutions  are  formed,  and  struggles  made,  with 
the  view  of  eradicating  the  attachment,  only  to  be  baffled  by  untoward  circum- 
stances, and  cruel  usage  inflicted  on  the  parties  suspected  while  yet  innocent,  till 
they  are  led  or  driven  to  an  intercourse  which,  the  author  tells  us,  the  world  in  its 
uncharitableness  condemns,  but  condemns  in  utter  ignorance  of  the  circumstances, 
and  which  may  be  regarded  as  being  hallowed,  as  well  as  sweetened,  by  the  spirit 
of  devotedness  and  self-sacrifice  with  which  it  is  characterized. 

The  healthier  English  mind  recoils  from  such  a  picture  with  a  just  abhorrence ; 
and  reprobates  the  literature  in  which  vice  is  so  painted  as  to  be  admired.  But 
this  same  boastful  English  spirit  overflows  with  feelings  of  admiration  towards  a 
different,  and  it  is  supposed,  a  more  perfect  picture.  We  have  an  attractive  view 
of  the  country  squire — warm-hearted,  honest,  kind  to  his  tenantry,  liberal  in  sup- 
plying the  wants  of  the  poor,  and  sticking  fast  to  his  political  party;  and  though 
it  is  not  denied,  but  rather  avowed  with  self-complacent  candour,  that  he  is  given 
at  times  to  excess  in  drinking,  that  he  swears  when  in  a  passion,  that  at  least  he 
has  no  respect  to  God  in  his  conduct,  or  humble  submission  of  heart  before  his 
heavenly  Governor — we  are  made  to  forget,  or  justify  all  this,  in  our  admiration 
of  his  bluff  integrity  and  disinterested  charity.  Or  it  is  the  British  merchant  that 
is  brought  before  us  in  the  market-place,  open-hearted  and  open-handed  ;  or  the 
English  yeoman  in  his  sequestered  cottage,  industrious,  respectful  to  his  superiors, 
and  attached  to  the  ancient  heads  of  his  house ;  but  both  the  one  and  the  other,  it 
is  acknowledged  without  shame,  if  not  with  pride,  are  notoriously  not  given  to  peni- 
tence for  sin,  or  to  express  love  to  God,  which  they  do  not  feel ;  nay,  it  is  not  con- 
cealed that  they  are  at  times  addicted  to  profanity  and  gross  neglect  of  sacred 
duties  ;  and  yet  we  are  made  to  admire  none  the  less,  but  all  the  more,  this  worldly 
morality,  because  it  is  not  rendered  offensive  by  religion. 

Truly  our  popular  novels  give  us  a  correct  picture  of  human  nature ;  but  not  in 
the  way  in  which  their  advocates  would  have  it.  They  give  us  a  picture,  not  of 
the  world  as  it  is,  but  of  the  world,  as  the  world  supposes  itself  to  be.  The 
skilful  eye  may  see,  by  a  deeper  skill,  in  the  skilful  novel,  the  tricks  to  which 
mankind  resort  to  disguise  their  characters  from  themselves,  and  deck  them  in 
assumed  colours. 

If  the  question  related  to  the  relative  superiority  of  the  Frenchman's  or  English- 
man's feeling,  we  should  have  no  hesitation  in  giving  the  preference  to  the  latter  as 
the  healthier  ;  but  the  question  rather  is,  Is  the  feeling  of  the  one  or  the  other 
what  it  ought  to  be?  The  Englishman  condemns,  and  very  properly  condemns, 
the  picture  drawn  by  the  Frenchman.  But  can  you  deny,  says  the  Frenchman, 
that  the  tenderness,  the  sympathy,  the  devotedness  of  my  hero  and  heroine  are 
commendable?  No,  says  the  Englishman  ;  but  we  are  not  accustomed  to  think  in 
our  country  that  fine  sentiment  excuses  open  immorality.  But  the  Englishman  is 
too  blunt  and  self-confident  to  perceive  that  it  is  with  the  same  weapons  that  he 
defends  himself  when  attacked.  Do  you  not,  says  he,  commend  this  sterling 
honesty  and  openness  of  character  ?  Most  assuredly  we  do,  more  than  the  fine 
sentimentality  of  the  Frenchman  ;  but  we  feel  all  the  while,  that  if  fine  sentiment 
cannot  excuse  immorality,  just  as  little  can  an  earthly  morality  excuse  an  acknow- 
ledged ungodliness.  That  there  is  truth  in  the  one  picture  as  in  the  other — in  the 
Frenchman's  as  in  the  Englishman's — we  frankly  admit.     We  would  not  dispute 


446  ILLUSTRATIVE  NOTE. 

the  co-existence  at  times  of  genuine  feeling  and  purposes  of  heroism  in  the  heart 
that  plans  robbery  and  adultery.  We  believe  that  there  may  be  the  exercise  of 
sterling  honesty,  and  large  liberality,  and  devoted  attachments,  in  peer  and  peasant, 
in  merchant  and  mechanic,  altogether  unaccompanied  with  faith  in  God,  or  a  sense 
of  dependence  on  him.  But  just  as  the  Englishman  sets  little  value  on  the  French- 
man's flowing  sensibilities,  cherished  in  contempt  of  the  laws  of  morality ;  so  we 
believe  that  the  man  whose  conscience  is  properly  balanced,  and  weighs  all  things 
in  equal  scales,  will  not  allow  himself  to  be  hurried  along  by  a  blind  admiration 
of  mere  instinctive  qualities,  which  either  have  no  respect  to  God,  or  set  God  at 
open  defiance.  Let  us  condemn  not  only  the  Frenchman's  attempt  to  cheat  us  out 
of  our  morality  by  a  theatrical  exhibition  of  sensibility,  but  the  Englishman's  at- 
tempt to  cheat  us  out  of  our  reverence  for  piety,  by  the  attractive  and  possibly  far 
from  faithful  picture  of  a  godless  morality. 

Let  us  mark  how  human  virtues  and  human  vices  ever  slide  into  each  other,  and 
are  not  separated,  as  true  virtue  must  ever  be  from  vice,  by  a  distinct  line  of 
demarcation.  We  find,  on  anatomizing  the  characters  of  great  men,  who  have  also 
been  bad  men,  that  their  noble  qualities  are  woven  like  warp  and  woof  with  those 
that  are  baser,  in  such  a  way,  that  the  two  cannot  be  separated.  The  pride,  the 
self-assurance,  and  passion  of  Robert  Burns  were  indissolubly  connected  with  that 
noble  manliness  and  independence  of  spirit  which  he  delights  to  display.  Rous- 
seau's exquisite  sentiment,  and  his  morbid  jealousy  and  addictedness  to  sensuality, 
were  associated  togefher  in  his  fine  but  effeminate  and  diseased  temperament.  No 
man  can  separate  Byron's  thoughts,  often  so  grand  and  yet  so  wild  and  loose, 
from  his  previous  history,  his  early  vices,  his  precocious  lusts  and  passions,  with  a 
conscience — roused  into  activity  by  the  open  nature  of  the  rebellion  against  it — 
kicking  against  them.  We  think  it  should  be  admitted  in  all  these  cases  that  we 
could  not  have  had  the  one  set  of  qualities  without  the  other— the  genius  and 
feeling  in  the  particular  form  without  the  previous  history,  the  disordered  temper- 
ament, and  the  melancholy  experience.  We  could  not  have  had  these  throes,  so 
indicative  of  strength,  without  the  accompanying  fever.  Just  as  the  wound  in  the 
body  helped  Harvey  to  discover  the  circulation  of  the  blood;  so  it  has  been  the 
rent  in  these  men's  nature  which  has  enabled  us  to  look  into  the  living  movements 
of  their  hearts.  Are  we  therefore  to  palliate  the  vice,  because  of  its  connexion 
with  the  properties  which  we  are  constrained  to  admire?  No;  it  were  vastly 
more  becoming  to  suspect  the  virtues  that  have  sprung  from  so  dubious  a  source — 
no,  not  to  condemn  the  virtues,  but  to  condemn  the  agent  in  his  supposed  virtues, 
as  well  as  in  his  vices,  because  the  elements  of  which  the  one  is  composed  are  about 
as  base  as  the  elements  of  the  other. 

Proceeding  on  the  idea,  that  what  are  commonly  called  virtues  are  real  virtues, 
we  should  find  that  no  line  can  be  drawn  to  divide  them  from  contiguous  vices  ; 
and  Hume  is  right  in  saving,  "  All  kinds  of  vice  and  virtue  run  insensibly  into 
each  other,  and  may  approach  by  such  imperceptible  degrees,  as  will  make  it  very 
difficult,  if  not  absolutely  impossible,  to  determine  where  the  one  ends  and  the 
other  begins."*  It  might  easily  be  shown  how,  out  of  the  same  elements  of  our 
nature,  there  may  be  produced  avarice,  as  well  as  industry — malice,  as  well  as 
what  is  called  spirit — vanity,  as  well  as  amiability — cowardice,  as  well  as  caution. 
One  man  is  a  great  hero,  another  is  a  great  criminal ;  if  they  had  but  exchanged 
places,  they  would  also  have  exchanged  characters.  Take  the  common  ideas  of 
virtue,  and  we  shall  speedily  find  that  the  difference  between  virtue  and  vice  is  one 
of  circumstance,  rather  than  nature — of  degree,  rather  than  of  kind.     What  was 

*  Morals,  P.  ii.  sect,  vi. 


ARGUMENT  FROM  THE  PHYSICAL  AND  MORAL.       447 

esteemed  as  vice  in  one  rank  of  life,  would  require  to  be  regarded  as  virtue  in 
another.  Proceeding  on  the  views  of  the  world,  and  carrying  them  to  their 
legitimate  conclusion,  we  shall  find  moral  distinctions  effaced,  and  all  defined  ideas 
deranged  and  confounded.  Let  us  learn,  then,  to  draw  back  before  we  reach  such 
an  issue,  and  examine  the  stability  of  the  ground  on  which  the  common  notions  are 
built.  If  it  be  true  that  certain  vices  spring  from  the  same  root  as  what  are 
supposed  to  be  virtues,  it  is  worthy  of  inquiry  whether  these  supposed  virtues  are 
to  be  regarded  as  virtues  at  all. 

Every  observer  of  human  nature  will  admit,  that  the  person  of  most  correct 
demeanour  might,  under  a  different  training,  but  with  the  same  internal  principles, 
have  fallen  into  not  a  few  acknowledged  vices.  This  person  has  been  kept  right, 
merely  in  consequence  of  a  way  being  hedged  in  for  him,  and  by  the  operation  of 
instincts  in  which  there  is  nothing  truly  virtuous;  and  in  another  position,  these 
very  instincts  might  have  hurried  the  possessor  into  open  crime.  Are  we  therefore 
to  excuse  the  crime  on  the  part  of  those  who  commit  it?  No,  assuredly  ;  but  we 
are  to  make  a  searching  inquiry  into  our  mere  outward  decorum,  lest  it  should 
turn  out  to  be  founded  on  principles  and  originating  in  motives  which  are  no  way 
morally  commendable.  Let  us  anticipate,  in  this  matter,  the  day  of  judgment, 
where  there  will  be  "  innumerable  false  and  imaginary  virtues,  which  will  involve 
their  possessors  in  deeper  disgrace  than  vices  themselves  when  acknowledged  and 
deplored." 


SECT.  V. — SUMMARY  OF  THE  ARGUMENT  FROM  THE  COMBINED 
VIEW  OF  THE  PHYSICAL  AND  THE  MORAL. 

In  astronomy,  the  distance  of  a  star  is  determined  by  surveying 
it  from  two  points.  In  like  manner,  there  seem  to  be  heavenly 
truths  which  are  best  ascertained  by  taking  two  positions,  and 
a  view  from  each.  It  is  from  a  consideration  both  of  the  physi- 
cal and  the  moral  that  we  obtain  the  proper  measure  of  the 
Divine  administration. 

We  cannot  from  the  physical  alone  determine  what  God  and 
this  world  are  in  their  relation  to  one  another.  Considered  in 
itself,  the  physical  does  seem  so  constituted  as  to  be  restrictive 
of  human  folly  and  punitive  of  human  wickedness.  But  the 
argument  is  far  from  being  complete,  till  we  demonstrate,  on 
independent  grounds,  that  human  folly  and  human  wickedness 
exist.  We  have,  throughout  the  whole  of  this  Treatise,  pro- 
ceeded on  the  principle,  that  we  cannot  connect  the  facts  till  the 
separate  existence  of  each  has  been  ascertained  on  satisfactory 
grounds.  By  a  preliminary  examination  of  the  Physical,  it  may 
be  shown  to  be  fitted  to  promote  such  and  such  ends ;  but  the 
complement  of  the  argument  is  derived  from  the  consideration 
of  the  Moral,  which  shows  that  there  are  such  ends  to  be  served. 


448  ARGUMENT  FROM  THE  PHYSICAL  AND  MORAL. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  does  not  appear,  that  from  a  considera- 
tion of  the  moral  taken  separately,  we  could  readily  form  a  pro- 
per estimate  of  the  relation  of  God  and  the  world.  The  internal 
feelings  would  he  apt  to  be  disregarded  by  mankind,  so  inclined 
to  look  to  the  world  without  instead  of  the  world  within,  and 
would  certainly  be  misinterpreted,  but  for  the  confirmation 
furnished  by  the  visible  dispensations  of  Divine  providence. 
As  the  physical  requires  the  moral,  so  the  moral  requires  the 
physical,  as  its  complement  in  giving  a  full  exhibition  of  the 
character  of  God,  and  of  his  administration  in  reference  to  our 
world. 

We  have  failed  of  the  object  which  we  had  in  view,  if  we 
have  not  shown  that  the  two,  the  physical  and  the  moral,  are  in 
complete  harmony — a  harmony  implying,  however,  that  man 
has  fallen,  that  God  is  restraining  while  he  blesses  him,  and 
showing  his  displeasure  at  sin  while  he  is  seeking  to  gain  the 
heart  of  the  sinner.  Leave  out  any  one  of  these  elements,  and 
to  us  the  world  would  appear  an  inexplicable  enigma.  Take 
these  truths  with  us,  and  there  is  sufficient  light  struck  to  show, 
that  if  we  had  but  farther  light,  every  mystery  might  be  ex- 
plained ;  and  we  feel  that  this  farther  light  may  be  denied  us 
just  because  of  the  probationary  state  in  which,  according  to 
these  truths,  we  are  placed.  There  is  thus  introduced  a  consis- 
tency into  the  whole,  including  even  the  seeming  inconsistencies 
which,  if  we  cannot  clear  up,  we  can  at  least  account  for. 


METHOD  OF  THE  DIVINE  GOVERNMENT. 


BOOK  FOURTH. 

RESULTS— THE  RECONCILIATION  OF  GOD  AND  MAN. 


CHAPTER  I. 

NATURAL  AND  REVEALED  RELIGION— THE  CHARACTER  OF  GOD. 
SECT.  I. — ADVANTAGE  OF  HARMONIZING  NATURE  AND  REVELATION. 

At  the  close  of  our  extensive  survey,  it  may  be  useful  to 
collect  into  a  few  heads  the  results  which  we  have  been  able  to 
gather  in  our  progress.  If,  in  the  discussions  in  which  we  were 
engaged  in  the  first  book,  we  felt  ourselves  merely,  as  it  were,  in 
the  vestibule ;  we  now,  after  having  passed  through  the  temple, 
feel  ourselves  to  be  entering  the  chancel,  the  holiest  of  all. 
Here  we  seek  to  have  God  himself"  communing  with  us  in  a 
supernatural  way,  to  clear  up  doubts  and  mysteries.  "  When  I 
thought  to  know  this,  it  was  labour  in  mine  eyes,  until  I  went 
into  the  sanctuarv." 

One  of  the  objects  contemplated  in  this  Treatise  has  been  the 
spiritualizing  of  nature,  which  has  been  so  carnalized  by  many, 
and  in  sanctifying  it.  to  bring  it  into  communion  with  religion. 

We  have  often  mourned  over  the  attempts  made  to  set  the 
works  against  the  Word  of  God,  and  thereby  excite,  propagate, 
and  perpetuate  jealousies,  fitted  to  separate  parties  that  ought 
to  live  in  closest  union.  In  particular,  we  have  always  regretted 
that  endeavours  should  have  been  made  to  depreciate  nature, 
with  the  view  of  exalting  revelation  ;  it  has  always  appeared  to 

2  F 


450  ADVANTAGE  OF  HARMONIZING 

us  to  be  nothing  else  than  the  degrading  of  one  part  of  God's 
works,  in  the  hope  thereby  of  exalting  and  recommending 
another.  It  is  at  all  times  perilous  on  the  part  of  the  votaries, 
"whether  of  science  or  religion,  to  set  the  branches  of  knowledge 
which  they  severally  prosecute  against  each  other.  On  the 
one  band,  science  cannot  accomplish  ends  truly  beneficent,  if  it 
make  an  idol  of  works  of  God,  and,  Parsee-like,  worship  the 
sun,  and  moon,  and  elements  of  nature  ;  and,  on  the  other  hand, 
religion  is  unnecessarily  raising  prejudices  against  itself,  and  is 
truly  dishonouring  God — while  it  may  profess  to  honour  him — 
when  it  would  discourage  inquiry  into  those  works  which  he  has 
spread  around  us,  which  are  manifestly  inviting  us  to  contemplate 
and  admire  them,  and  rewarding  us  by  a  thousand  discoveries, 
when  we  treat  them  as  we  ought  to  treat  the  Divine  workman- 
ship, and  investigate  them  with  patience  and  with  reverence. 

Perilous  as  it  is  at  all  times  for  the  friends  of  religion  to  set 
themselves  against  natural  science,  it  is  especially  so  in  an  age 
like  the  present.  We  live  at  a  time  when  all  our  educated  youth 
are  instructed  in  the  elements  of  natural  science,  as  well  as  in 
the  more  sacred  doctrines  of  theology.  We  fear  that  there  are 
many  wdio  know  not  how  to  reconcile  the  two  faiths  in  which 
they  have  been  educated.  Meanwhile  studious  attempts  are 
being  made  to  show  that  Christianity  cannot  stand  the  light  of 
the  age  in  which  we  live.  The  impression  left  is  very  painful, 
when  the  mind  imagines  that  it  discovers  a  discrepancy  between 
two  departments  of  knowledge  in  which  it  has  been  trained,  as 
painful  as  if  one  were  to  hear  it  reported  of  a  revered  friend,  a 
parent,  or  brother,  that  he  had  committed  a  dishonourable  or 
criminal  action.  Thousands  have  felt  in  this  way,  and  thousands 
are  at  this  present  time  so  feeling,  as  they  turn  from  secular 
books  of  science  to  the  Bible,  and  when  they  enter  our  upper 
schools,  our  mechanics'  institutions,  and  colleges.  The  heart  of 
many  a  youth  of  promise  has  been  wrung,  till  feelings  more 
bitter  than  tears  have  burst  from  it,  as  he  stood  bv  the  chasm 
over  which  no  bridge  seemed  to  be  thrown.  A  dark  cloud  of 
doubt  arising  from  that  gulf  has  brooded  over  and  settled  upon 
many  a  mind,  and  has  produced  the  same  effects  as  a  wet  and 
cloudy  atmosphere  upon  the  body,  damping  by  its  moist  and 
heavy  influence  all  generous  confidence,  all  zeal  and  enthusiasm. 
Others,  abandoning  religion,  as  laying  restraints  upon  them  to 


NATURE  AND  REVELATION.  451 

which  they  were  not  willing  to  yield,  have  betaken  themselves  to 
the  splendid  but  uninhabited  halls  of  science,  and  wander  through 
them  in  wonder  and  admiration,  but  without  ever  finding,  or  so 
much  as  looking  for,  a  governor  to  rule  or  a  teacher  to  instruct, 
a  friend  to  comfort,  or  a  mediator  to  intercede  for  them.* 

It  is  no  profane  work  that  is  engaged  in  by  those  who,  in  all 
humility,  would  endeavour  to  remove  jealousies  between  parties 
whom  God  has  joined  together,  and  whom  man  is  not  at  liberty 
to  put  asunder.  We  are  not  lowering,  the  dignity  of  science 
when  we  command  it  to  do  what  all  the  objects  which  it  looks  at 
and  admires  do,  when  we  command  it  to  worship  God.  Nor  are 
we  detracting  from  the  honour  which  is  due  to  religion,  when 
we  press  it  to  take  science  into  its  service,  and  accept  the  homage 
which  it  is  able  to  pay.  We  are  seeking  to  exalt  both,  when  we 
show  how  nature  conducts  man  to  the  threshold  of  religion,  and 
when  from  this  commanding  position  we  bid  him  look  abroad  on 
the  wide  territories  of  nature.  We  would  aid  at  the  same  time 
both  religion  and  science,  by  removing  those  prejudices  against 
sacred  truth  which  nature  has  been  employed  to  foster ;  and  we 
would  accomplish  this,  not  by  casting  aside  and  discarding 
nature,  but  by  rightly  interpreting  it. 

Let  not  science  and  religion  be  reckoned  as  opposing  citadels, 
frowning  defiance  upon  each  other,  and  their  troops  brandishing 
their  armour  in  hostile  attitude.  They  have  too  many  common 
foes,  if  they  would  but  think  of  it,  in  ignorance  and  prejudice,  in 
passion  and  vice,  under  all  their  forms,  to  admit  of  their  lawfully 
wasting  their  strength  in  a  useless  warfare  with  each  other. 
Science  has  a  foundation,  and  so  has  religion ;  let  them  unite 
their  foundations,  and  the  basis  will  be  broader,  and  they  will  be 
two  compartments  of  one  great  fabric  reared  to  the  glory  of  God. 
Let  the  one  be  the  outer  and  the  other  the  inner  court.  In  the 
one,  let  all  look,  and  admire,  and  adore  ;  and  in  the  other,  let 
those  who  have  faith  kneel,  and  pray,  and  praise.  Let  the  one 
be  the  sanctuary  where  human  learning  may  present  its  richest 
incense  as  an  offering  to  God  ;  and  the  other,  the  holiest  of  all, 
separated  from  it  by  a  veil  now  rent  in  twain,  and  in  which,  on  a 
blood- sprinkled  mercy-seat,  we  pour  out  the  love  of  a  reconciled 
heart,  and  hear  the  oracles  of  the  living  God. 

*  See  a  very  melancholy  picture  of  the  experience  of  Jouffroy  in  his  "  Melanges 
Nouvelles." 


452  ADVANTAGE  OF  HARMONIZING 

In  the  foregoing  discussions  we  have  studiously  avoided  the 
direct  introduction  of  Scripture,  and  this  for  several  reasons. 
First  of  all,  we  did  not  wish  to  make  religion  responsible  for 
our  speculations,  which  must  stand  or  fall  according  to  the 
evidence  adduced.  Augustine  has  uttered  a  proper  warning 
against  the  identifying  of  Scripture  and  human  dogmatism, 
"  lest,  when  a  more  thorough  discussion  has  shown  the  opinion 
which  we  had  adopted  to  be  false,  our  faith  may  fall  with  it, 
and  we  should  be  found  contending,  not  for  the  doctrines  of  the 
Sacred  Scriptures,  but  for  our  own  attempts  to  make  our  doc- 
trine that  of  the  Scriptures,  instead  of  taking  the  doctrine  of 
Scripture  to  be  ours."  We  wished  to  avoid  rendering  ourselves 
liable  to  the  rebuke  of  Bacon  in  that  well-known  passage  in 
which  he  remonstrates  with  those  who  seek  philosophy  in  the 
Scriptures,  which  he  describes  as  seeking  the  dead  among  the 
living — as  the  seeking  of  religion  in  philosophy  is  the  seeking  of 
the  living  among  the  dead.  "  And  this  folly,"  he  adds,  "is  the 
more  to  be  prevented  and  restrained,  because  not  only  fantas- 
tical philosophy,  but  heretical  religion,  spring  from  the  absurd 
mixture  of  things  divine  and  human.  It  is  therefore  the  wisest, 
soberly  to  render  unto  faith  the  things  that  are  faith's."*  Such 
weighty  considerations,  have  led  us  to  separate  between  our  own 
ratiocinations  and  the  dicta  of  the  infallible  Word.  We  were 
resolved,  that  if  we  could  not  bring  any  contributions  to  religion, 
we  should  at  least  keep  from  injuring  it  by  making  it  lean  upon 
our  views  and  opinions. 

We  have  had  another  object  in  view.  We  wished  to  contri- 
bute a  quota  of  evidence  to  the  support  of  the  Divine  original 
of  the  Scriptures.  We  were  anxious  to  show  that  nature,  rightly 
interpreted,  so  far  from  setting  itself  against  Christianity,  fur- 
nishes not  a  little  to  favour  it,  and  that  both  give  the  same 
views  of  the  character  and  government  of  God,  and  of  the  nature 
and  destiny  of  man.  But  in  order  to  lend  such  a  support, 
however  feeble,  to  revelation,  it  is  evident  that  the  prop  must 
be  built  upon  an  independent  basis.  We  have  sought  for  such 
a  basis,  and  have  found  it,  as  we  conceive,  in  the  government  of 
God,  as  seen  in  his  works,  properly  comprehended. 

Nor  are  we  bound  to  prove,  in  order  to  the  use  of  this  argu- 
ment, that  the  human  mind  could  have  discovered  all  these 

*  Novum  Organum. 


NATUKE  AND  REVELATION.  453 

doctrines  by  its  native  force.  It  may  be  doubted  whether 
without  a  revelation  from  God,  we  could  have  discovered  the 
miue  in  which  we  have  been  digging ;  but  this  is  no  reason 
why  we  should  not  employ  the  wealth  which  has  been  found 
there  in  supporting  the  cause  of  Him  who  has  conducted  us  to 
it.  Such  cases  of  action  and  reaction  in  evidence  occur  in  every 
department  of  inquiry.  The  question  is  not,  whether  these  views 
could  have  been  discovered  by  unaided  reason  ;  but  the  question 
is — Now,  when  reason  has  been  aided,  does  it  not  give  its  sanc- 
tion to  the  doctrines  which  we  have  been  expounding  ?  With- 
out the  telescope  we  could  not  have  discovered  a  multitude  of 
the  heavenly  bodies  which  are  now  open  to  the  observation  thus 
assisted  ;  yet  it  is  by  these  very  bodies  that  the  astronomer  tries 
and  tests  his  instruments.  The  prop  derived  from  the  inter- 
pretation of  God's  works  may  be  a  support,  provided  always 
it  has  a  separate  basis,  though  it  partially  lean  on  the  object 
supported. 

And  hence  we  are  at  perfect  liberty,  and  in  consistency  with 
all  that  we  have  been  urging,  to  agree  with  such  writers  as 
Halyburton  and  Leland,  when  they  show  the  importance  of 
revelation  in  clearing  up  the  doubts  that  press  upon  and  weigh 
down  the  human  spirit.  We  may  acknowledge  the  necessity  of 
a  light  from  heaven,  to  enable  us  to  find  out  the  territory  which 
we  have  been  exploring ;  but  from  that  territory  we  may  look 
up  with  gratitude  to  the  light  which  has  guided  us,  and  every 
new  discovery  made  may  demonstrate  that  it  is  truly  a  light 
from  heaven.  Our  argument  is  not  a  moving  in  a  circle,  but  the 
reflection  of  light  back  upon  the  body  from  which  it  has  come. 

We  are  entitled,  then,  to  urge  the  analogy  or  correspondence 
between  natural  and  revealed  religion  as  an  argument  in  behalf 
of  the  latter.  The  phenomena  to  which  the  attention  has  been 
called  are  facts,  and  they  establish  the  very  doctrines  revealed  in 
Scripture.  Other  explanations,  we  are  aware,  may  be  given, 
and  have  been  given,  of  some  of  these  phenomena  ;  but  we  hold 
that  the  explanation  which  we  have  advanced  is  the  only  satis- 
factory one.  Even  though  it  should  be  regarded  only  as  ac- 
counting for  them  better  than  any  other,  or  as  well  as  any  other, 
still  the  argument  would  not  be  without  its  force.  Taking  even 
the  low  view,  that  the  Scriptures  can  enable  us  to  explain  some 
of  the  mysteries  of  the  Divine  government ;  or  the  still  lower 


454  PREVAILING  DEFECTIVE  VIEWS  OF 

one,  that  the  darker  phenomena  of  nature  admit  of  an  explana- 
tion agreeably  to  the  Divine  Word — we  should  find  even  then 
a  reflex  contribution  to  the  Word  which  has  furnished  us  with 
such  a  key. 

Apart  altogether  from  the  evidence  in  behalf  of  the  Divine 
origin  of  the  Scriptures,  we  have  obtained,  as  it  appears  to  us, 
man}-  instructive  and  pleasing  views  of  the  ways  of  God,  and 
humbling,  yet  exalted,  views  of  the  character  of  man.  We 
have  entered  fields  into  which  the  inspired  writers  do  not  carry 
us,  and  in  them  we  have  gathered  instruction  in  unison  with  the 
letter  and  spirit  of  the  Word,  and  fitted  to  enable  the  reflecting 
mind  to  make  a  Christian  use  of  modern  philosophy.  If  it  is 
the  will  of  God  that  men  should  use  their  lofty  faculties  in 
investigatingjhe  works  of  nature,  it  is  surely  his  will  that  they 
should  also  employ  them  in  connecting  the  truths  of  nature 
with  the  truths  of  revelation.  All  cold  and  distant  though 
some  of  these  truths  may  appear,  we  believe  that  when  the  light 
of  heaven  shines  upon  them,  the  thoughtful  mind  may  derive 
much  from  them  to  refresh  and  quicken  the  faith,  as  the  snow- 
covered  mountains  send  forth  their  streams  to  water  the  thirsty 
plains  of  torrid  climes. 


SECT.  II. — PREVAILING  DEFECTIVE  VIEWS  OF  THE  DIVINE 

CHARACTER. 

There  have  been  ages  in  the  history  of  the  world  in  which  it 
might  have  been  more  needful  to  bring  into  prominence  what 
are  commonly  called  the  natural  attributes  of  God,  such  as  his 
omnipresence  and  omnipotence.  But  the  spirit  of  this  age, 
fostered  by  the  extensive  study  of  geology,  astronomy,  and 
chemistry,  always  brings  these  perfections  into  bold  relief,  at  the 
risk  of  causing  other  properties  to  sink  out  of  view.  We  have 
been  endeavouring  to  bring  under  notice  the  phenomena  that 
are  fitted  to  correct  certain  views  of  the  Divine  character,  which 
are  so  prevalent  and  yet  withal  so  superficial  and  inadequate. 

First,  the  mechanical  view  of  God.  This  is  the  natural 
product  of  a  mechanical  age.  It  is  an  age  engrossed  in  studying 
the  mere  mechanism  of  nature,  and  its  idea  of  God  has  come  to 
be  that  of  a  great  mechanician,  or  an  omnipotent  engineer 


*  THE  DIVINE  CHARACTER.  455 

constructing  worlds  like  steam-engines,  to  work  according  to  the 
properties  with  which  they  are  endowed. 

An  apostle  seems  to  allude  to  this  form  of  infidelity  as  about 
to  appear  in  the  latter  days.  "Since  the  fathers  fell  asleep, 
all  things  continue  as  they  were  from  the  beginning  of  the 
creation."  Strange  it  is,  that  this  infidelity,  proceeding,  no 
doubt,  from  the  ungodliness  of  the  heart,  but  taking  its  specific 
form  and  particular  direction  from  the  scientific  character  of  the 
age,  should  have  been  spoken  of,  eighteen  centuries  ago,  by  a 
fisherman  of  Galilee.  This  error  is  to  be  met,  not  by  an  empty 
declamation  against  general  laws,  or  a  crusade  against  the 
discoveries  of  science,  which  must  prove  injurious  only  to  the 
party  undertaking  it ;  but  by  a  narrow  scrutiny  of  these  general 
laws,  and  a  resolution  of  them  into  their  elements ;  and,  by 
demonstrating,  that  God  is  present  in  the  very  midst  of  those 
things  which  continue  as  they  were — present,  just  as  much  as 
he  was  in  the  ages  of  miracles  in  which  the  fathers  lived,  or  as 
he  can  be  in  that  renewal  of  miraculous  interpositions  which 
may  yet  take  place  before  the  history  of  our  world  closes.  We 
shall  not  succeed  in  making  persons  avoid  the  poison,  adminis- 
tered in  food,  by  denouncing  the  food,  but  by  carefully  separat- 
ing the  one  from  the  other :  the  most  effective  method,  in  short, 
of  rectifying  error  is  to  separate  the  truth  from  the  error  with 
which  it  has  become  associated. 

We  have  sought  to  eliminate  the  truth  by  exhibiting  nature 
in  its  full  and  living  action.  (1.)  In  the  very  operation  of 
physical  causes  there  must  always  be  the  presence  of  two  or 
more  bodies,'  with  their  several  properties  bearing  a  relation  to 
each  other,  and  so  adjusted  as  to  admit  the  action  of  the  pro- 
perties. (2.)  In  those  general  arrangements,  so  beneficial, 
which  constitute  general  laws,  there  are  numberless  implied 
adaptations  of  substance  to  substance,  of  property  to  property, 
and  cause  to  cause,  and  all  these  abiding  or  recurring  in  a  world 
of  activity  and  change.  (3.)  There  is  a  vast  number  of  events 
falling  out,  not  according  to  any  general  order  of  recurrence, 
but  individually,  and,  so  far  as  human  sagacity  is  concerned,, 
incidentally ;  and,  constituting  a  power  by  which,  on  the  one 
hand,  God  accomplishes  his  specific  purposes,  and  by  which,  on 
the  other  hand,  man  is  rendered  completely  dependent  on  his 
Governor.     Taking  these  general  facts  along  with  us,  we  are 


456  PKEVAILING  DEFECTIVE  VIEWS  OF 

thereby  introduced  into  the  very  heart  of  God's  works  ;  we  can 
discover  him  alike  in  the  general  and  the  particular,  and  in  the 
accommodation  of  both  to  the  character  of  man.  We  are  now 
out  of  that  mechanism,  which  minds  of  high  sentiment  feel  to 
be  so  offensive.  We  see  not  only  the  heart  of  the  mechanism, 
we  see  also  the  very  heart  of  the  worker.  It  is  not  mere  wheel 
upon  wheel,  and  cylinder  upon  cylinder — we  see  now  the  moving 
power,  and  the  whole  issue  contemplated  ;  and  in  the  connexion 
between  them,  we  discover  the  agent  displaying  his  affection 
and  lofty  principle,  his  purity  and  grace.  All  nature,  before  so 
dull,  is  now  lighted  up,  but  with  light,  we  have  to  add,  too 
brilliant  for  those  eyes  which  prefer  the  darkness. 

Physical  investigation  gives  the  mere  bones  and  muscles,  and 
these  very  commonly  without  their  connexions.  Common  na- 
tural theology  gives  us  these  in  their  adjustments,  but  without 
the  life,  the  full  form,  and  expression.  Both  are  too  like  the 
plates  of  bare  anatomy,  so  different  from  the  living  form  of  the 
human  body.  But  we  must  go  beyond  a  mere  machine — wc 
must  go  beyond  an  organism — we  must  show  how  the  works  of 
God  testify  of  one  who  lives  and  acts,  who  loves  his  creatures, 
who  indicates  his  approbation  of  all  that  is  good,  and  his  dis- 
approbation of  all  that  is  evil.  Science,  in  short,  gives  us  the 
mere  anatomy  of  the  body  of  nature,  instructive,  no  doubt,  in 
its  exhibition  of  important  members  and  organs;  common  na- 
tural theology  gives  us  the  physiology  of  nature,  and  shows  the 
full  frame  in  its  connexions  and  beautiful  proportions  :  but  the 
human  mind  will  not  rest  till,  in  the  region  of  a  higher  art,  we 
have  also  its  physiognomy,  and  nature  presented  in  its  living 
forms,  its  face  radiant  with  smiles,  and  the  deep  lines  of  thought 
and  character  graven  on  its  forehead.  Such  is  the  figure  we 
have  endeavoured  to  present,  rising  beyond  mechanism  to  life, 
and  beyond  law  to  love,  and  finding  the  traces  of  a  living  God 
whom  we  may  admire  and  trust,  and,  at  the  same  time,  revere 
and  adore,  and  whose  image,  as  we  cherish  it,  assimilates  our 
character  to  itself. 

Secondly,  the  sentimental  view  of  God.  This  is  the 
product  of  the  poetry  as  the  other  is  of  the  science  of  the  times  ; 
or,  to  go  deeper,  the  one  is  the  creation  of  the  imagination  and 
emotions,  as  the  other  is  of  the  mere  intellect  empirically  exer- 
cised, and  both  under  the  guidance  of  an  unholy  heart.     The 


THE  DIVINE  CHARACTER.  457 

one  view,  like  the  other,  is  not  so  much  erroneous  as  it  is  defec- 
tive. Let  us  clothe  the  Divine  Being  with  as  bright  a  robe  of 
loveliness  as  we  please ;  but  let  us  not  pluck  from  him,  mean- 
while, his  sceptre  and  his  crown,  or  represent  him  as  indifferent 
alike  to  evil  and  to  good. 

We  have  endeavoured  to  go  down  deeper  than  the  mere 
floating  feelings,  in  which,  as  in  a  shining  atmosphere,  so  many 
envelop  a  body  that  is  truly  dark  in  itself,  and  call  it  the  God 
of  Light.  (1.)  There  are  arrangements  of  Divine  providence  by 
which  God  is  visibly  seen  to  restrain,  to  correct,  and  punish 
mankind.  (2.)  There  is  a  law  in  the  heart,  which  leads  the 
possessor  to  approve  of  that  which  is  morally  good,  and  disap- 
prove of  that  which  is  evil,  and  that  even  when  he  is  neglecting 
the  one  and  committing  the  other ;  and  all  this  points  to  a 
righteousness  in  the  Divine  character,  which  is  no  less  essential 
to  his  nature  than  his  benevolence.  (3.)  There  is  an  evil  con- 
science which  charges  the  possessor  with  guilt,  and  reveals  im- 
pending judgments,  while  it  makes  known  no  method  of  atone- 
ment, and  the  whole  pointing  to  an  offended  God.  These  are 
facts  pressiug  themselves  on  our  notice  from  without  and  from 
within,  and  which  we  are  not  at  liberty  to  leave  out  of  account, 
in  forming  a  basis  on  which  to  construct  our  idea  of  God. 

Taking  these  facts  along  with  us,  we  rise  above  a  Divinity, 
the  mere  creation  of  sentiment.  Such  a  God — with  reverence 
be  it  spoken — were  not  worthy  to  rule  this  great  universe.  We 
have  sought  to  mount  to  the  conception  of  a  God  fitted  to 
govern  the  world,  and  to  awe  mankind  into  obedience  and  sub- 
mission without  any  detraction  from  his  love.  True,  he  is  a 
God  on  whom  the  eye  of  the  sinner  determined  to  continue  in 
his  sin  does  not  delight  to  rest,  and  whom  the  wicked  will  hate 
just  because  they  are  wicked.  But  even  in  the  very  bosoms  of 
such,  God  has  a  witness  which  testifies  that  his  character  is  very 
beautiful ;  and  which  declares  that  it  would  be  good  for  man 
were  his  eyes  so  strengthened  that  he  could  gaze  upon  it  with 
pleasure,  and  were  his  character  shining  in  the  light  reflected 
from  it. 

There  are  not  a  few  in  our  day  who,  instead  of  contemplating 
the  true  character  of  God,  look  merely  at  certain  pleasing  ac- 
companiments ;  and,  instead  of  the  true  light,  allow  their  eye 
to  rest  upon  the  clouds  gilded  by  his  beams,  and  which  fade, 


458  PREVAILING  DEFECTIVE  VIEWS  OF 

like  the  blaze  of  the  evening  sky,  into  darkness  while  we  gaze 
upon  them.  We  would  fix  the  eye  on  God  himself,  shining  for 
ever  in  these  heavens,  and  whose  beams  melt  that  which  is 
hardened,  and  warm  that  which  is  cold  on  the  earth — 

"  As  the  great  sun,  when  he  his  influence 
Sheds  on  the  frost-bound  waters,  the  glad  stream 
Flows  to  the  ray,  and  warbles  as  it  flows." — Coleridge. 

Thirdly,  the  pantheistic  view  of  God.  Pantheism  has 
been  compared  to  a  cloud,  and  it  bears  to  it  a  resemblance  in 
more  respects  than  one ; — it  is  capable  of  great  expansion,  it 
bulks  largely  to  the  eye,  at  a  distance  it  looks  very  like  a  solid 
body,  it  assumes  picturesque  shapes,  and  is  often  beautifully 
gilded,  and  when  we  would  seize  it,  we  find  it  eluding  our 
grasp,  and  evanishing.  It  takes  a  number  of  forms,  and  upon 
our  apprehending  it,  it  is  apt  to  perform  a  metempsychosis,  and 
change  from  one  to  another.  There  is  Material  Pantheism, 
according  to  which  it  is  the  material  universe,  with  its  laws, 
its  animation,  and  its  thought,  the  result  of  organism,  which 
constitutes  the  only  God.  There  is  Organic  Pantheism,  which 
speaks  of  nature  as  endowed  with  vitality,  and  deifies  it  (to 
use  the  language  of  Cams)  as  the  highest,  the  most  complete, 
the  universal  organism.  If  this  mystical  language  has  any 
realistic  signification,  it  must  mean  that  nature  is  just  a 
magnificent  vegetable,  or  an  infinite  brute,  and  that  this 
vegetable,  this  brute,  is  God.  There  is  Ideal  Pantheism, 
which  is  the  form  which  the  system  has  taken  with  certain 
schools  of  metaphysicians  addicted  to  deep  reflection  upon  the 
subjective  and  upon  the  abstract  notions  which  the  mind  of 
man  can  form.  As  they  gaze  upon  these  the  material  world 
disappears  from  the  view  as  an  independent  reality,  and  leaves 
only  a  connected  series  of  subjective  forms  or  mental  ideas, 
which  are  supposed  to  constitute,  at  one  and  the  same  time, 
God  and  the  universe.  According  to  Spinoza,  this  One  is  sub- 
stance possessed  of  thought  and  extension.  According  to  Fichte, 
it  is  a  universal  ego  projecting  the  universe  from  itself.  Ac- 
cording to  fSchelling,  it  is  a  sort  of  ethereal  essence,  developing, 
according  to  a  law,  thought  and  being,  which  are  identical. 
With  Hegel  it  is  the  absolute  unfolding  itself  according  to  a 
logical  process,  in  which  nothing  becomes  something,  and  the 
ideal  the  real,  and  God  becomes  conscious  in  humanity.    What- 


THE  DIVINE  CHARACTER.  459 

ever  be  the  shape  taken,  it  is  liable  to  the  following  among 
other  objections : — 

(1.)  It  might  be  shewn  to  be  inconsistent  with  the  conscious- 
ness of  self,  with  the  consciousness  of  personality.  In  all  con- 
sciousness we  know  ourselves  as  persons ;  in  all  knowledge  of 
other  objects  we  know  them  as  different  from  ourselves,  and 
ourselves  as  different  from  them.  It  follows  that  all  is  not  God, 
that  God  is  not  all,  for  we  know  of  at  least  one  eminent  excep- 
tion, and  that  is  ourselves,  the  object  with  which  we  are  most 
intimately  acquainted.  Pantheism  is  thus  found  to  be  opposed,  to 
our  very  intuitions,  to  our  very  consciousness,  and  no  matter  what 
the  proof  adduced,  in  its  favour  be,  it  never  can  be  equal  to  the 
evidence  against  it  found  in  the  very  constitution  of  our  minds. 

(2.)  It  is  inconsistent  with  the  traces  of  adjustment  and  pur- 
pose everywhere  met  with  in  nature.  No  form  of  Pantheism 
admits  final  cause,  and  yet  how  numerous  the  traces  in  God's 
works  of  a  concurrence  of  means  to  produce  an  end.  It  is  not 
mere  law  or  development,  physical  or  logical,  which  can  give  us 
existing  nature,  with  its  curious  coincidences,  its  intended  acci- 
dents, and  pre-determined.  contingencies,  but  a  mind  seeing  and 
ordaining  beforehand,  contemplating  at  once  the  means  and  the 
end.  Nature  tells  us  regarding  itself  that  it  is  not  a  power 
coeval  and  co-ordinate  with  God,  but  a  work  planned  and  exe- 
cuted by  a  Maker  existing  before  it,  and  still  existing  above  it. 
We  have  found  in  the  course  of  these  investigations  something 
more  than  a  mere  power,  or  principle,  or  abstraction ;  we  have 
reached  a  personal  God,  whose  character  is  in  his  works,  but 
whose  works  do  not  constitute  his  nature  or  character.  The 
painter's  soul  is  no  doubt  thrown  into  his  painting,  and  the 
sculptor's  and  architect's  into  their  statues  and  edifices,  but  their 
souls  meanwhile  exist  apart,  and  are  capable  of  other  acts  be- 
sides. In  a  sense  as  true  as  it  is  grand,  the  soul  of  the  Creator 
is  streaming  through  the  order  and  life  of  creation,  but  mean- 
while he  exists  independent  of  and  far  above  them. 

(3.)  It  is  inconsistent  with  the  possession  by  man  of  a  sepa- 
rate and  a  free  will.  It  is  the  circumstance  that  we  are  pos- 
sessed of  a  distinct  will  which  suggests  the  idea  that  God  is  not 
a  law  or  principle,  but  a  person  with  a  power  of  voluntary  de- 
termination. As  conscious  of  an  inherent  and  positive  freedom, 
we  are  led  to  look  upon  God  as  also  free.     Nay,  we  go  a  step 


460  PREVAILING  DEFECTIVE  VIEWS  OF 

farther,  and  maintain  that  the  possession  of  voluntary  power 
and  freedom  on  the  part  of  man  is  a  proof  that  the  God  from 
whom  these  proceeded  has  a  will,  and  this  a  free  will.  It  is  not 
easy  to  gather,  as  to  certain  forms  of  Pantheism,  whether  they 
do  or  do  not  attribute  will  and  freedom  to  God.  All  forms  of 
Pantheism  which  do  not  ascribe  a  separate  will  to  God,  land  us 
in  the  absurdity  of  supposing  them  to  produce  in  man  a  free 
will  not  possessed  by  himself  from  eternity.  If  the  other  alter- 
native be  taken,  and  will  be  ascribed  to  Deity,  then  we  have 
two  wills  in  the  universe, — the  will  of  God  and  the  will  of  man  : 
and  it  follows  that  all  is  not  one  in  anv  intelligible  sense,  for 
we  have  two  distinct  wills  which  may  run  counter  to  each  other. 
Whatever  be  the  philosophic  system  adopted,  we  have,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  the  hundreds  of  millions  of  distinct  wills  possessed 
by  human  beings.  These  separate  wills  shew  by  one  process 
that  God  must  have  a  distinct  will,  and  by  another  process  that 
there  cannot  be  merely  one  will  in  the  universe,  and  they  thus 
set  aside  every  system  which  declares  that  "All  is  One  \" 

(4.)  It  is  inconsistent  with  our  intuitive  belief  of  accountability 
to  God  as  Judge.  There  is  in  man,  we  have  seen,  a  native 
principle  leading  him  to  distinguish  Let  ween  good  and  evil,  and 
pointing  to  a  punishment  to  follow,  and  to  a  Being  to  inflict  the 
punishment.  This  feeling  of  responsibility  implies  that  God  is 
Judge,  and  that  we  must  give  an  account  to  him  of  the  deeds 
done,  whether  thev  have  been  good  or  evil.  But  Pantheism 
must  set  aside  all  belief  in  a  personal  immortality,  and  all  ap- 
prehension of  a  judgment  day.  Under  such  a  system  it  is  seen 
to  be  vain  to  suppose  that  God  can  seriously  purpose  to  punish 
the  sin,  or  so  much  as  to  condemn  it,  and  it  is  acknowledged 
that  at  death  the  soul  is  swallowed  up  and  lost  in  the  all-ab- 
sorbing One.  At  this  point,  then,  Pantheism  comes  into  collision 
with  irradicable  principles  of  the  mind,  (stronger  far  than  any 
arguments  which  can  be  urged  in  its  favour,)  which  announce 
that  we  are  accountable,  that  we  who  are  judged  must  be  the 
same  as  the  persons  who  committed  the  deeds,  and  that  God  as 
Judge  must  be  different  from  those  who  are  judged. 

A  German  speculatist  has  lost  himself  in  the  windings  of 
nature,  as  the  traveller  will  lose  himself  among  the  trees  and 
intertangled  branches  of  a  forest.  There  is  a  way  through  the 
wood  which  humbler  men,  which  peasants  know  ;  but  which  the 


THE  DIVINE  CHAKACTER.  461 

proud  will  not  submit  to  inquire  about,  and  they  toil  and  wan- 
der amidst  gorgeous  scenes,  and  think  that  they  are  making 
progress,  and  they  do  turn  aside  many  a  branch  which  would 
interpose  itself  in  the  way,  and  they  exert  prodigious  strength 
and  amazing  ingenuity,  bnt  having  never  found  the  near  way, 
or  the  right  way,  the  paths  in  which  they  walk  either  conduct 
them  into  deepening  thickets  of  error,  or  land  them  nearly  at 
the  point  at  which  they  started.  "  By  the  roaring  billows  of 
time,  thou  art  not  ingulfed,  but  borne  aloft  into  the  azure  of 
eternity."  By  the  roaring  billows  of  proud  speculation,  we 
would  rather  say,  thou  art  but  borne  along  to  that  dim  region 
in  which  we  lose  sight  of  thee.  No  doubt,  the  imagination  is 
often  deceived  by  the  gay  drapery  in  which  the  object  set  forth 
to  our  contemplation  by  Pantheism  is  decked,  and  the  intellect, 
dizzied  by  the  many  turnings  of  sophistry  through  which  it  has 
been  carried  before  the  vision  is  disclosed,  is  the  less  capable  of 
detecting  the  deception ;  yet  the  heart,  more  faithful  than  the 
head,  will  feel  at  times  that  it  is  but  a  phantom  which  it  is 
required  to  love  and  worship,  and  that  truly  within  there  is 
neither  heart  nor  life,  though  there  may  be  grace  and  motion 
in  the  outward  form.  The  worshipper  carried  through  the  long 
avenues  of  columns  and  statues,  and  the  splendid  halls  of  the 
ancient  temple  of  the  Egyptian  Thebes,  was  not  conducted  at 
last  to  a  more  miserable  termination,  when  in  the  inner  shrine 
he  found  one  of  the  lower  animals,  than  the  follower  of  a 
modern  philosopher,  when  conducted  through  processes,  laws, 
and  developments  to  a  divinity  who  has  less  of  separate  sensa- 
tion, consciousness,  and  life,  than  the  very  brutes  which  Egypt 
declared  to  be  its  gods. 

SECT.  III. — CHARACTER  OF  GOD  AS  REVEALED  IN  SCRIPTURE. 

"  Hear,  0  Israel,  the  Lord  our  God  is  one  Lord."  We  quote 
this  language  in  the  way  of  adaptation — not  in  its  original  mean- 
ing, (when  it  simply  states  the  doctrine  of  the  unity  of  God,)  but 
as  expressive  of  the  important  truth,  that  there  is  a  wonderful 
consistency,  or  rather  identity,  in  the  representation  given  of 
the  Divine  character  in  the  Scriptures.  "  The  God  of  Israel  is 
one  Lord." 

"The  Bible  itself  is  a  standing  and  an  astonishing  miracle, 


462  CHAKACTER  OF  GOD 

Written,  fragment  by  fragment,  throughout  the  course  of  fifteen 
centuries,  under  different  states  of  society,  and  in  different  lan- 
guages, by  persons  of  the  most  opposite  tempers,  talents,  and 
conditions,  learned  and  unlearned,  prince  and  peasant,  bond  and 
free  ;  cast  into  every  form  of  instructive  composition  and  good 
writing,  history,  prophecy,  poetry,  allegory,  emblematic  repre- 
sentation, judicious  interpretation,  literal  statement,  precept, 
example,  proverbs,  disquisition,  epistle,  sermon,  prayer — in  short, 
all  rational  shapes  of  human  discourse  ;  and  treating,  moreover, 
of  subjects  not  obvious,  but  most  difficult ;  its  authors  are  not 
found,  like  other  writers,  contradicting  one  another  upon  the 
most  ordinary  matters  of  fact  and  opinion,  but  are  at  harmony 
upon  the  whole  of  their  sublime  and  momentous  scheme."* 

In  the  language  now  quoted,  reference  is  made  to  one  of  the 
most  convincing  of  the  self-evidencing  truths  of  that  Word, 
which  carries  within  itself  its  own  credibility,  and  is  visible  in 
its  own  light.  We  have  an  example  in  the  thoroughly  consis- 
tent representation  given  of  the  character  of  God.  It  is  the 
same  God  exhibited  under  the  patriarchal,  the  Jewish,  and  the 
Christian  dispensations.  Except  in  the  degree  of  development, 
there  is  no  difference  between  God  as  revealed  in  Eden,  on 
Sinai,  and  on  Calvary — between  God  as  exhibited  in  the  books 
of  Moses,  and  as  exhibited  so  many  centuries  later  in  the 
writings  of  Paul  and  John.  In  the  garden,  we  have  the  law- 
giver, and  we  have  indications,  too,  of  the  Saviour.  On  Mount 
Sinai  there  is  the  same  combination  of  awful  justice  and  con- 
descending mercy.  In  the  mysterious  transactions  on  Calvary, 
there  is  an  awful  forsaking  and  a  fearful  darkness,  emblematic 
of  the  righteousness  and  indignation  of  God,  as  there  is  also  a 
melting  tenderness  in  the  words  of  our  Lord  breathing  forgive- 
ness and  love,  and  telling  of  an  opened  paradise.  The  first  book 
shows  to  us,  near  its  commencement,  a  worshipper  offering  a 
lamb  in  sacrifice,  and  the  last  discloses  a  lamb  as  it  had  been 
slain,  in  the  midst  of  the  throne  of  God.  To  Moses  lie  reveals 
himself  as  Jehovah,  the  Lord  God,  "merciful  and  gracious, 
long-suffering,  and  abundant  in  goodness  and  truth,  .  .  .  and 
that  will  by  no  means  clear  the  guilty."  Paul  speaks  of  him  as 
"just,  and  yet  the  justifier  of  the  ungodly;"  and  John,  as 
"  faithful  and  j ust  to  forgive  us  our  sins."    Whence  this  harmony 

*  Discourse  by  Professor  Maclagan. 


AS  REVEALED  IN  SCRIPTURE.  463 

or  rather  unity  in  the  Divine  character  ?  Whence  this  wonder- 
ful correspondence  in  the  portraits  drawn  by  so  many  different 
hands  ?  We  can  account  for  it  only  by  supposing  that  they  all 
drew  from  one  great  original. 

We  have  endeavoured  to  show  that  the  God  of  revelation  is 
also  the  God  of  nature,  when  nature  is  rightly  expounded,  and 
when  all  its  phenomena  are  contemplated.  An  exalted  view  of 
the  spiritual  nature  of  man  will  at  once  conduct  to  a  belief  in 
the  spiritual  character  of  God.  Enlarged  conceptions  of  space 
and  time,  and  of  the  magnitude  of  creation,  will  at  once  suggest 
an  omnipotent  and  omnipresent  God.  TUe  providence  of  God 
indicates  wisdom  and  care,  with  government  the  most  particular 
and  minute.  The  moral  principle  in  man,  pointing  to  an  excel- 
lence in  God  to  be  admired,  but  to  an  excellence  which  man 
does  not  possess,  gives  evidence  of  a  holy  God  governing  a  fallen 
race.  Leave  out  any  of  these  classes  of  natural  phenomena, 
and  we  have  a  God  under  some  one  or  other  of  the  partial  and 
distorted  forms  in  which  he  has  been  presented  in  different 
ages  and  nations.  Combine  the  whole,  and  we  have  a  God 
identical  with  the  Jehovah  of  the  Scriptures. 

All  professed  religions  have  seized  on  some  one  or  other  of  the 
features  of  God,  and  their  votaries  have  been  determined  in  the 
choice  made  by  the  prevailing  sentiments  of  their  hearts,  and  the 
habits  in  which  they  have  been  trained.  In  those  eastern 
countries  in  which  the  mass  of  the  people  have  been  consigned 
to  a  slavish  subjection  to  authority,  the  popular  religions  have 
represented  the  supernatural  power  as  exercising  an  iron  despot- 
ism, and  exacting  a  deep  prostration.  The  dreamy  and  medita- 
tive spirits  of  the  same  region,  again,  have  cherished  abstractions 
which  widen,  and  are  dissipated  more  and  more,  till  they  are  lost 
in  an  illusive  and  ethereal  nonentity.  Among  the  more  active, 
spirited,  and  liberty-loving  nations  of  western  Asia  and  eastern 
Europe,  the  popular  faith  became  more  individual,  personal,  and 
anthropomorphic,  and  they  approached  their  gods  with  a  greater 
feeling  of  familiarity.  Each  divinity  among  the  Greeks  had  a 
special  character  with  special  objects  of  interest,  and  the  Pan- 
theon embodied  all  the  popular  virtues  and  vices  of  the  country. 
In  less  civilized  countries,  where  the  inhabitants  ranged  through 
wide  forests  and  over  rugged  mountains,  and  the  tribes  were 
generally  at  fierce  war  with  each  other,  the  presiding  divinities 


464  CHARACTER  OF  GOD 

were  painted  in  colours  of  blood,  or  in  robes  of  darkness.  And 
let  us  observe  how,  in  eacli  of  these  pictures,  there  is  the  seizing 
of  some  real  feature  of  the  character  of  God,  though  fearfully 
distorted,  and  brought  out  with  horrid  prominence.  Vulgar 
minds  would  ascribe  all  this  to  the  priesthood,  forgetting  that 
the  priesthood  itself,  so  different  in  different  nations,  is  the  pro- 
duct, and  not  the  cause,  of  the  tastes  and  cravings  of  our  nature 
— which  it  may  yet,  however,  by  reaction,  greatly  foster  and 
augment.  And  why,  of  all  people,  should  the  ancient  Hebrews 
be  the  only  nation  which  succeeded  in  embracing  all  that  is 
great  and  lovely,  to  the  exclusion  of  all  that  is  degrading  and 
offensive  ?  Ingenious  minds  may  speculate  as  they  please,  but 
sound  reason  will  ever  most  fondly  rest  on  the  belief  in  a  super- 
natural communication  as  alone  able  to  explain  the  phenomenon. 

How  totally  different  is  the  God  of  the  Hebrews  from  the 
divinities  revered  by  those  who  lived  in  the  neighbouring  coun- 
tries, and  in  the  same  states  of  society !  What  a  difference 
between  Jehovah  on  the  one  hand,  and  Osiris,  or  Baal,  or  Jupiter, 
not  to  speak  of  Astarte,  and  Venus,  and  Bacchus,  on  the  other ! 
The  characters  differ,  not  only  in  degree,  but  they  belong  to  a 
different  class  or  order,  and  are  without  a  single  common  virtue, 
except  that  suggested  by  an  unpacified  conscience,  as  it  points 
to  a  God  displeased  with  human  rebellion  and  folly. 

The  God  of  Israel,  on  the  other  hand,  is  altogether  different 
from  the  God  of  the  philosophers,  whether  of  the  demi-civilized 
nations  of  the  East,  of  ancient  Greece  and  Rome,  or  modern 
Europe.  It  might  be  easy,  we  are  aware,  to  cull  isolated  passages 
from  Plato,  Cicero,  and  Seneca,  in  which  there  appear  to  be 
wonderfully  enlarged  views  given  of  the  Divine  nature  ;  but  when 
the  whole  theology  of  these  authors  is  taken  in  its  combination, 
we  find  the  select  quotations  to  be  utterly  deceptive.  Take 
Greece  and  Rome  in  their  ripest  periods,  and  examine  their 
boasted  "  disciplines."  The  Epicureans  removed  their  gods  far 
above  the  care  and  supervision  of  human  affairs  ;  in  short,  as 
Cicero  says,  "  admitted  their  existence  in  words,  but  denied  it  in 
fact."*  The  Academics  may  be  regarded  as  represented  by 
Cicero  ;  they  delighted  in  discussing  everything,  but  they  believed 
little.  The  Peripatetics  habitually  overlooked  Divine  tilings,  and 
their  views  of  God  are  acknowledged  to  be  miserably  meagre  and 
*  Verbis  ponunt,  re  tollunt  Deos. — De  Nat.  Deor. 


AS  REVEALED  IN  SCRIPTURE.  465 

unsatisfactory.  There  remains  only  among  these  famous  sects 
that  of  the  Stoics,  usually  represented  as  the  most  advanced  of  all 
the  sects  of  Greece  or  Rome  in  the  knowledge  of  Deity.  Accord- 
ing to  them,  there  was  one  great  Divine  Principle  or  Being,  with 
a  vast  number  of  other  gods.  This  Being  or  Principle  was  re- 
presented by  them  as  of  the  nature  of  fire,  and  was  identified  with 
the  element  fire,  regarded  by  them  as  the  most  elevated  and 
powerful  of  all  the  elements.  This  Divine  power  of  fire  they 
represented  as  the  governing  principle  of  the  universe,  regulating 
all  things  by  cycles.  In  these  cycles,  which  followed  one  another 
in  never-ending  succession,  there  was  a  periodical  conflagration, 
in  which  all  things  were  consumed  into  the  elemental  fire  or 
Divine  principle,  which  at  this  period  reigned  alone.  Then,  in 
the  proper  course  of  development,  this  ethereal  substance  began 
to  condense,  and  first  the  sun,  the  heavenly  bodies,  and  the  gods 
were  formed,  and  then  the  earth  and  men,  and  these  continued  to 
act  their  allotted  part  till  the  cycle  closed  with  another  conflagra- 
tion, in  which  heaven  and  earth,  with  gods  and  men,  were  ab- 
sorbed in  the  Divine  and  all-devouring  ether.  It  might  be  easy 
to  find  language  in  the  writings  of  this  sect  sounding  loftily  to 
the  ear,  (the  Stoics  were  addicted  to  lofty  phrases  in  ethics  and 
religion  ;)  but  such  was  really  the  theology  of  the  sect  which 
produced  the  hymn  of  Cleanthes,  which  Cicero  selects  to  repre- 
sent sound  and  enlightened  theism,  and  which  ranked  among  its 
votaries  Seneca,  Epictetus,  and  Antoninus,  among  the  greatest 
divines  and  moralists  of  all  heathen  antiquity.  May  we  not 
hold  the  Stoic  Deity  to  be  the  highest  product  which  the  Greek 
and  Roman  intellect  could  furnish  in  Divinity  ? 

How  different,  at  this  day,  is  the  God  of  revelation,  from  the 
god  of  abstract  and  academic  philosophy,  whether  it  be  that 
of  speculative  Germany,  or  sentimental  France,  matter-of-fact 
England,  or  Scotland  with  an  intellect  as  hard  as  its  rocks ! 
These  gods  are  all  of  a  class.  However  they  may  differ  in  minor 
particulars,  some  of  them  being  painted  in  more  meagre  and 
others  in  more  gorgeous  colours,  they  all  agree  in  this,  that  they 
are  shorn  of  the  attribute  of  holiness.  They  all  differ  from  the 
living  and  true  God,  who,  while  clothed  in  attributes  as  lofty 
as  any  which  the  reason  of  philosophers  can  develop,  or  the 
imagination  of  poets  can  conceive,  is  raised  far  above  their  crude 
conceptions,  by  being  constituted  a  holy  Governor  and  Judge. 

2  G 


466  CHARACTER  OF  GOD 

But  here  we  must  draw  a  distinction,  to  save  ourselves  from 
a  seeming  contradiction.  We  assert,  on  the  one  hand,  that  from 
every  mind  there  are  reflected  the  living  lineaments  of  the  true 
God,  and  yet,  on  the  other,  that  unaided  reason  has  failed  to 
exhibit  them,  except  in  a  partial  way.  There  is  no  real  incon- 
sistency here.  The  difficulties  in  the  way  of  discovering  the  true 
character  of  God  lie  in  the  prejudices  and  partialities  of  the  heart. 
These  have  so  narrowed  and  warped  the  mind,  that  it  has  failed 
to  rise  to  a  full  idea  of  the  Divine  character.  Nevertheless,  when 
that  idea  has  been  developed  by  those  who  have  been  carried  up 
into  a  higher  region  by  a  supernatural  power,  the  human  mind 
may  be  capable  of  declaring  that  this  notion  is  the  true  one. 
Nebuchadnezzar  could  not  recall  the  "  image  of  gold,  and  silver, 
and  brass,  and  iron,"  which  he  had  seen  in  the  visions  of  the 
night,  though  he  seems  to  have  had  some  straggling  recollections 
of  it ;  but  what  his  own  memory  and  the  knowledge  of  his  sages 
could  not  produce,  was  accomplished  by  the  prophet,  when  he 
made  the  figure  stand  distinctly,  and  with  all  its  fulness  of 
meaning,  before  him,  and  then  he  instantly  recognised  it.  Now, 
we  may  hold,  that  there  are  on  the  human  heart  faint  impres- 
sions of  the  Divine  character,  which  it  is  difficult  to  read  in  the 
light  of  nature,  but  which,  being  read  in  the  purer  light  of 
revelation,  disclose  the  very  God  whom  this  revelation  fully 
describes  and  exhibits.  Some  of  the  truths  which  we  are  ex- 
pounding stand  on  the  very  horizon  of  human  vision,  and  are 
seen  very  dimly  by  the  unassisted  eye ;  but  when  the  optic  glass 
of  revelation  is  directed  towards  them,  the  misty  shapes  start 
into  defined  forms,  and  we  are  satisfied  at  once  of  the  correctness 
of  the  guesses  made  without  the  telescope,  and  of  the  accuracy  of 
the  telescope  which  has  given  such  distinctness  to  the  indefinite. 
We  are  entitled,  then,  in  perfect  consistency,  to  wield  a  double 
argument — in  the  first  place,  to  show  that  the  scriptural  view  of 
the  Divine  character  is  altogether  in  unison  with  that  furnished 
by  the  works  of  God  ;  and,  in  the  second  place,  from  the  beauti- 
ful agreement  of  the  two,  to  establish  the  Divine  original  of  that 
Word  in  which  the  Divine  character  is  so  accurately  represented. 
So  far  from  being  contradictory,  we  believe  that  the  one  involves 
the  other,  and  that  they  meet  in  the  necessary  harmony  of  true 
reason  and  real  revelation. 

All  this  appears  the  more  evident,  when  we  consider,  that  in 


A<2  REVEALED  IN  SCRIPTURE.  4G7 

the  various  false  religions  which  have  appeared  in  the  world, 
there  are  always  to  be  found  some  of  those  conceptions  which 
enter  into  the  true  idea.  All  religions  exhibit  some  part  of  the 
truth,  being  that  which  the  human  heart  was  led  to  fix  on  in  the 
circumstances.  False  and  defective  religions  have,  under  the 
guidance  of  human  nature,  singled  out  merely  those  properties  of 
God  which  impressed  that  nature,  while  in  revelation  we  have  the 
complete  figure,  drawn  evidently  by  parties  to  whom  God  had 
immediately  revealed  himself. 

In  particular,  we  find,  in  all  religions  which  have  recommended 
themselves  to  large  bodies  of  mankind,  and  which  have  exercised 
a  powerful  influence  upon  the  human  mind — a  deep  impression 
of  man  having  rendered  himself  obnoxious  by  transgression  to  a 
God  who  has  prescribed  a  moral  law,  and  is  offended  by  dis- 
obedience. The  prevalence  of  such  a  sentiment  shows  how 
deeply  it  is  seated  in  the  human  heart,  and  how  unfitted,  philo- 
sophical theism  (which  provides  nothing  piacular)  is  to  meet  the 
felt  wants  of  mankind.  While  the  Scriptures  have  not  over- 
looked this  property  of  the  Divine  nature,  they  have  stripped  it 
of  all  the  offensive  adjuncts  with  which  it  is  usually  associated, 
and  combined  it  with  all  those  lofty  natural  perfections  which 
the  philosopher  delights  to  contemplate,  and  with  a  love  as  un- 
bounded and  tender  as  the  sentiments  of  man's  heart  have  ever 
conceived  ;  thus  revealing  a  combination,  of  each  part  of  which, 
the  understanding,  the  conscience,  and  the  affections  are  con- 
strained to  approve,  but  which,  notwithstanding,  has  never  been 
go  exhibited,  in  its  completeness,  by  the  highest  efforts  of  unaided 
reason. 


468  SYMPTOMS  OF  INTENDED  RESTORATION. 


CHAPTER  II. 

RESTORATION  OF  MAN. 
SECT.  I. — SYMPTOMS  OF  INTENDED  RESTORATION. 

Our  argument  under  this  particular  section  is  far  from  being 
very  consecutive  or  conclusive.  It  is  safer,  to  say  the  least  of 
it,  to  establish  a  posteriori  that  God  has  afforded  a  means  of 
restoration,  than  to  waste  ingenuity  in  proving  a  priori  that 
such  an  interposition  of  heaven  is  probable.  In  conducting  this 
latter  argument,  we  find  invariably,  that  not  a  little  is  assumed 
which  could  have  been  discovered  or  rendered  certain  only  by 
the  revelation  itself. 

The  few  scattered  observations  which  we  have  to  offer  are  of 
an  a  posteriori  and  inductive  character.  We  are  to  point  to 
some  facts  which  seem  to  indicate  that  God  did  intend  to  insti- 
tute a  method  of  restoring  the  race.  In  order  to  attain  even 
such  a  presumption  or  probability,  we  must  take  into  account 
two  apparently  opposite  classes  of  facts. 

.  First,  we  must  carry  along  with  us  an  acknowledgment  of 
human  guilt,  and  of  God's  enmity  to  sin.  Without  doing  so, 
we  cannot  advance  a  step  in  the  argument.  Proceed  on  the 
idea  that  man  is  very  much  what  God  would  have  him  to  be, 
and  it  is  impossible  to  find  a  ground  on  which  to  build  an  ex- 
pectation of'  the  interposition  of  heaven.  It  is  at  this  point 
that  the  argument  of  those  who  would  demonstrate  a  priori 
the  necessity  for  a  Divine  revelation  is  felt  to  be  weakest.  If 
mankind  are  in  an  unfallen  state,  and  their  Maker  upon  the 
whole  satisfied  with  them,  no  other  improvement  can  be  reason- 
ably looked  for,  beyond  that  which  may  be  expected  to  proceed 
from  human  intelligence  and  philanthropy.  We  cannot  get  a 
foundation  for  the  argument  till  certain  facts  have  been  estab- 
lished.    In  the  a  posteriori  reasoning  now  pursued,  we  proceed 


SYMPTOMS  OF  INTENDED  RESTORATION.  469 

on  the  demonstration  which  we  have  given  of  the  sinfulness  of 
the  race,  and  the  just  indignation  of  the  Governor  of  the  world. 

This  fact  alone,  however,  would  not  enable  us  to  construct 
an  argument.  For  it  might  be  urged,  with  some  plausibility, 
that  God  meant  to  allow  the  race  to  continue  in  their  present 
degraded  condition,  without  any  special  interference  or  restora- 
tion beyond  that  which  might  proceed  from  human  agency. 

And  so  we  must,  secondly,  take  along  with  us  the  deep  in- 
terest which  God  takes  in  the  happiness  and  virtue  of  the  race. 
Such  facts  as  these  press  themselves  upon  our  notice.  (1.)  There 
is  the  continued  existence  of  mankind  upon  the  earth,  showing 
that,  if  God  is  displeased  with  human  sinfulness,  he  is  at  the 
same  time  keeping  up  a  system  of  government,  having  a  special 
respect  to  them,  and  allowing  them  a  period  of  respite  and  pro- 
bation. (2.)  There  are  the  numberless  bounties  which  mankind 
enjoy,  shewing  that,  in  spite  of  human  sinfulness,  God  can  be 
their  benefactor.  (3.)  There  are  the  pains  which  God  is  taking 
in  his  government  to  recommend  and  uphold  virtuous  conduct. 

It  is  from  the  sharp  collision  of  these  classes  of  facts  that  we 
derive  any  spark  fitted  to  shed  light  upon  the  destinies  of  our 
world.  The  former,  if  taken  alone,  could  not  lead  us  to  suppose 
that  God  meant  to  do  anything  for  a  race  under  his  displeasure. 
The  latter,  considered  apart,  might  seem  rather  to  indicate  that 
God  was  contented  with  mankind,  and  meant  to  give  them 
nothing  beyond  what  they  naturally  possess.  But  let  us  take 
along  with  us  the  general  fact  that  God  is  offended  with  human 
guilt,  and  connect  it  with  the  other  fact  that  he  is  showering 
benefits  upon  the  race ;  and  there  results  a  possibility,  a  pre- 
sumption, if  not  a  probability,  that  God  intends  to  interpose  for 
the  vindication  of  a  government  which  has  been  dishonoured, 
and  the  restoration  of  a  race  in  which  he  is  deeply  interested. 
We  cannot  conceive  of  a  thinking  mind,  seriously  contemplating 
these  two  classes  of  facts,  without  there  following  a  wish  that 
there  might  be  something  to  reconcile  them — may  we  not  add, 
without  a  hope  or  expectation,  that  the  God  who  hates  sin,  and 
yet  loves  mankind,  would  manifest  himself  in  a  way  fitted  to 
exhibit  his  character  under  both  these  lights  in  combination  ? 
"  I  perceive  that  God  is  offended  with  mankind,"  would  be  the 
way  in  which  such  a  mind  would  reason,  "  and  I  see  that  he  is 
disposed  to  be  merciful,  and  he  would  only  be  following  out  his 


470  SYMPTOMS  OF  INTENDED  RESTORATION. 

own  method  of  procedure  were  he  to  devise  and  execute  some 
plan  by  which  man  might  know  the  mystery  of  his  relation  to 
God,  and  rise  from  his  present  degradation." 

Upon  these  two  general  facts,  some  general  considerations 
may  be  founded,  carrying  a  certain  weight  with  them. 

(1.)  Mankind  seem  to  be  a  race  fallen,  but  not  a  race  aban- 
doned— a  race  which  cannot  rise  of  itself,  but  a  race  which 
seems  to  be  kept  with  eare,  because  it  is  yet  to  rise.  When  we 
see  persons  taking  pains  to  deck  a  tomb,  we  are  led  to  suppose 
that  they  expect  the  dead  to  rise  again.  The  paintings,  the 
ornaments,  and  devices  on  the  sepulchres  of  ancient  Egypt  and 
Etruria,  all  seem  to  indicate  that  those  bodies  on  which  such 
delicate  attention  was  lavished  were  expected  to  spring  up  in 
renewed  life  and  vigour.  Some  of  our  readers  may  have  been 
struck  with  the  graphic  description  which  a  popular  writer  gives 
of  the  present  condition  of  the  Holy  Land,  appearing  as  if  it 
were  just  waiting  for  the  promised  renovation.*  "  They  shall 
build  the  old  wastes,  they  shall  raise  up  the  former  desolations, 
and  they  shall  repair  the  waste  cities,  the  desolations  of  many 
generations."  And  seeming  as  if  they  were  waiting  the  fulfil- 
ment of  this  prediction,  there  is  a  soil — gathering  in  depth  and 
fertility ;  and  in  the  east  of  the  Jordan,  there  are  numberless 
cities  without  inhabitants,  (Buckingham  saw  from  one  rocky 
eminence  upwards  of  twenty-five,)  but  with  the  houses  yet 
standing — in  some  instances,  so  many  as  800  deserted  dwellings, 
all  ready  for  the  inhabitants  who  are  yet  to  dwell  in  them. 
And  does  it  not  look  as  if,  after  the  same  way,  there  were  among 
the  ruins  of  our  nature  some  materials  which  God  is  keeping 
with  care,  that  he  may  rear  a  new  fabric  ?  While,  like  the  old 
men  in  Judah,  we  weep  over  the  recollection  of  a  glorious  temple 
fallen,  may  we  not  with  the  younger  men  shout  at  the  prospect 
of  a  more  glorious  temple  yet  to  be  built  ? 

(2.)  It  does  look  as  if  our  earth  were  waiting  for  something 
greater  and  better  than  has  ever  yet  been  realized.  '"  For  the 
earnest  expectation  of  the  creature  waiteth  for  the  manifestation 
of  the  sons  of  God.  For  the  creature  was  made  subject  to 
vanity,  not  willingly,  but  by  reason  of  him  who  hath  subjected 
the  same  in  hope  ;  because  the  creature  itself  shall  be  delivered 
from  the  bondage  of  corruption  into  the  glorious  liberty  of  the 

*  Keith's  Land  of  Israel,  chap.  \iii. 


SYMPTOMS  OF  INTENDED  RESTORATION.  471 

children  of  God  ;  for  we  know  that  the  whole  creation  groaneth 
and  travaileth  in  pain  together  until  now."  Inanimate  nature 
and  the  lower  animals  do  not  serve  the  noble  ends  which  they 
would  have  served  had  man  walked  upon  the  earth  a  pure  and 
sinless  being.  The  air  of  heaven,  as  we  breathe  it,  has  to  pass 
through  bodies  which  have  been  polluted  by  sin.  The  food 
which  the  earth  furnishes  has  been  commonly  employed  to 
pamper  the  bodies  of  those  who  give  no  thanks  to  God,  and  to 
nourish  strength  which  has  been  expended  in  breaking  his  law 
and  dishonouring  his  name.  That  sun  which  was  to  have 
lighted  mankind  on  errands  of  love,  has  now  to  shed  its  beams 
upon  the  evil  and  the  unjust,  as  they  prosecute  their  schemes  of 
selfish  aggrandizement.  And  that  lovely  moon,  and  these 
chaste  stars,  have  they  not  to  look  on  still  darker  deeds  of  crimi- 
nality which  dare  not  face  the  light  of  day  ?  May  we  not  hope, 
that  these  great  and  beauteous  works  of  God  were  preserved  for 
a  grander  purpose  than  they  have  ever  yet  served  ?  that  this  air 
is  yet  to  be  breathed  by,  and  the  light  of  these  heavenly  bodies 
to  shine  upon,  beings  as  pure  as  they  themselves  are  ? 

(3.)  How  universal,  too,  the  restlessness,  how  deep  the  groan- 
ings  and  travailinsrs  of  the  human  race  !  This  world  is  not  now, 
and  never  has  been,  what  its  inhabitants  would  wish  it  to  be. 
Hence  the  constant  endeavours  to  improve  it,  and  which  are 
successful  at  least  in  changing  it.  Whether  taken  individually 
or  collectively,  humankind  do  not  feel  themselves  to  be  at  ease. 
There  is  a  deep  uneasiness  in  every  human  bosom,  arising  from 
desires  which  have  not  been  gratified,  and  craving  appetites  for 
good  which  has  not  yet  been  attained.  This  prominent  feature  of 
the  individual  is  also  a  characteristic  of  the  race.  What  never- 
ending  schemes  for  the  improvement  of  mankind,  all  proceeding 
on  the  principle  that  mankind  need  to  be  improved !  Science  is 
advancing  its  discoveries,  and  politics  its  reforms,  and  all  to 
remove  the  evils  under  which  the  world  is  labouring.  Some  of 
these  projects,  it  is  true,  are  utterly  impracticable — many  of 
them  leave  the  world  just  as  they  found  it;  but  still,  the  very 
eagerness  with  which  they  are  proposed  and  pursued  shows  that 
man  is  not  satisfied  with  his  present  condition  and  the  world  in 
which  he  dwells.  His  exertions  are  too  often  like  the  struggles 
of  the  fever-patient,  issuing  in  no  permanent  improvement  of 
his  condition,  but  the  writhings  and  groanings  prove  that  he  is 


472  SYMPTOMS  OF  INTENDED  RESTORATION. 

in  pain,  and  would  wish  to  be  in  a  different  position.  Can  we 
suppose  that  such  universal  wishes  and  expectations  would  be 
excited  without  a  deep  reason  ?  Do  not  the  universality  and 
the  fundamental  depth  of  the  desires  seem  to  indicate  that  they 
may  be  gratified  ? 

(4.)  Let  it  be  frankly  admitted  that  there  is  progress  in  the 
world.  There  is  progress  in  agriculture  ;  there  is  progress  in 
all  the  arts ;  there  is  progress  in  all  the  sciences ;  the  earth  is 
every  succeeding  year  made  to  yield  a  greater  quantity  of  pro- 
duce, and  man's  dominion  over  nature  is  rapidly  increasing.  The 
fruit  of  the  discoveries  of  one  age  contains  the  germ  of  the 
discoveries  of  the  generation  that  follows ;  and  the  new  plant 
springs  up  alongside  of  the  old  one,  to  scatter  seed  like  its  pro- 
genitor all  around.  No  valuable  invention  of  human  genius  is 
ever  lost,  and  most  of  them  become  the  means  of  multiplying 
themselves  by  a  greater  than  compound  interest,  and  thus 
render  each  succeeding  generation  richer  than  the  one  which 
went  before.  The  wealth  of  all  preceding  generations  is  thus 
to  be  poured  into  the  lap  of  the  generations  that  are  to  live  in 
the  latter  days  of  our  world's  history. 

How  sad  to  think,  that  amidst  all  these  improvements  in  the 
arts  and  secular  knowledge,  there  should  be  no  corresponding 
improvement  in  the  morale  of  the  human  character  !  A  thousand 
means  have  been  tried,  and  the  tendency  of  many  of  them  has 
been  excellent ;  yet  human  nature  has  continued  as  vain,  as 
proud,  and  selfish,  as  much  given  to  lust  and  passion  as  it  ever 
was.  When  some  one  was  enlarging  to  Coleridge  on  the  tendency 
of  some  scheme  which  was  expected  to  regenerate  the  world,  the 
poet  flung  up  into  the  air  the  down  of  a  thistle  which  grew  by  the 
roadside,  and  went  on  to  say,  "  The  tendency  of  that  thistle  is 
towards  China  ;  but  I  know,  with  assured  certainty,  that  it  will 
never  get  there — nay,  it  is  more  than  probable,  that  after  sundry 
eddyings,  and  gyrations  up  and  down,  and  backwards  and  for- 
wards, it  will  be  found  somewhere  near  the  place  in  which  it 
grew."  Such  has  ever  been  the  issue  of  those  boasted  schemes 
of  human  wisdom  which  have  professed  to  change  the  heart  of 
man.  Human  nature  is  in  this  respect  like  the  salt  sea  ;  the  sun 
is  daily  evaporating  its  waters,  but  does  not  drink  up  one  particle 
of  that  saline  ingredient ;  if  men  will  drink  of  its  bitter  waters, 
they  sicken,  and  madden,  and  die ;   all   the   rivers  that  run 


SYMPTOMS  OF  INTENDED  RESTORATION.  473 

into  it  have  not  changed  its  saltness.  It  is  thus  with  that 
malignant  nature  which  we  inherit  and  propagate,  all  human 
means  have  failed  to  purify  it,  and  it  stimulates  to  madness, 
disease,  and  death. 

But  is  there  to  be  a  physical  and  an  intellectual,  and  no  moral 
progress  ?  Is  the  lesser  to  advance,  and  the  greater  to  remain 
stationary  ?  Does  God  take  a  greater  interest  in  the  improve- 
ment of  human  knowledge  and  refinement  than  in  that  of  the 
heart  and  conduct  ?  Is  he  to  dissever  more  and  more  the 
physical  and  the  intellectual  from  the  moral  and  religious ;  to 
move  on  the  one,  while  the  other  continues  where  it  was,  to 
impress  us  the  more  with  the  fearful  gap  between  ?  Or,  rather, 
does  not  the  whole  government  of  God  show  that  he  values  the 
former  chiefly  as  subsidiary  to  the  latter  ?  In  the  past  progress 
of  the  one,  we  have  thus  a  presumption  in  favour  of  the  coming 
progress  of  the  other.  The  one  advances  by  human  agency 
under  the  ordinary  proceeding  of  Providence ;  it  requires,  no 
doubt,  means,  but  not  miracles.  The  other,  it  seems,  cannot 
attain  its  end  through  mere  human  activity  ;  and  since  it  can 
be  accomplished  in  no  other  way,  we  call  in  the  intervention  of 
God,  and  feel  as  if  such  were  necessary,  in  order  to  the  harmony 
and  completeness  of  plans  at  present  in  operation. 

Some  of  these  considerations  may  seem  to  be  brought  from  a 
great  distance,  but  by  their  collection'  and  clustering,  they  appear 
to  us  to  form  a  pleasant  belt  of  light — a  kind  of  milky  way,  hung 
over  our  world,  in  this  its  dark  night,  to  give  light  to  the 
traveller  who  has  set  out  in  search  of  truth. 

SECT.  II. WHAT   IS    NEEDFUL   IN   ORDER  TO  THE  RESTORATION  OF 

MAN — (1.)  IN  RELATION  TO  THE  CHARACTER  OF  GOD. 

We  feel  now  as  if  we  had  firmer  ground  to  stand  on.  It  is 
difficult  to  prove  a  'priori  that  God  should  interpose  for  the  rec- 
tification of  his  own  government,  and  the  improvement  of  human 
character.  There  is  less  difficulty  in  fixing  on  the  points  which 
require  vindication. 

The  gospel  professes  to  be  remedial,  and  remedial  of  an  evil 
affecting  the  laws  of  God,  and  the  character  and  condition  of  man. 
It  is  in  its  reference  to  the  Divine  government  that  we  are  to 
discover,  if  indeed  we  can  discover  anywhere,  its  appropriateness. 


474  WHAT  IS  NEEDFUL  IN  ORDER  TO 

Now,  we  find  the  plan  of  redemption  fitted  in  e\ery  particular  to 
meet  the  evils  existing  in  the  world,  as  these  present  themselves 
to  an  earnest  and  thoughtful  mind.  This  adaptation  furnishes 
one  of  the  highest  of  all  the  internal  proofs  in  favour  of  the  re- 
ligion of  the  Bihle.  There  may  be  an  argument  derived  from  the 
beauty  of  the  style,  so  much  superior  to  what  might  be  expected 
from  Hebrew  shepherds  and  Galilean  fishermen  ;  and  an  argu- 
ment from  the  heavenly  elevation  and  purity  of  the  morality ;  but 
there  may  be  an  argument  of  a  still  higher  order  obtained,  from 
the  fitness  of  the  whole  scheme  in  its  reference  to  the  government 
of  God  and  the  state  of  mankind.  That  these  excellencies  should 
all  have  met  in  a  cunningly-devised  fable  of  certain  Hebrew 
writers,  is  a  supposition  vastly  more  improbable  than  that  the 
religion  should  have  descended  from  heaven.  Those  who  ridicule 
the  alleged  credulity  of  the  Christian,  are  themselves  obliged  to 
yield  their  assent  to  the  most  monstrous  incredibilities. 

Nature  cannot  tell  beforehand  how  a  Divine  intervention  is 
to  accomplish  its  object,  for  that  intervention  must  be  beyond 
nature,  beyond  all  its  findings  and  experience.  It  can  an- 
nounce, however,  that  if  it  meet  the  clamant  evils,  it  must  be 
of  a  twofold  character,  corresponding  to  the  twofold  derange- 
ment. 

First,  there  must  be  a  provision  for  vindicating  the 
Divine  government,  dishonoured  by  the  rebellion  of  the 
creature,  and  this  in  accordance  with  the  character  of 
God.  Then,  Secondly,  there  must  be  a  provision  for  rec- 
tifying THE  HEART  AND  NATURE  OF  MAN.  The  first  of  these  is 
found  in  the  righteousness  and  sufferings  of  the  Mediator,  as 
giving  glory  to  God,  and  effecting  a  reconciliation  ;  and  the 
second  is  provided  in  the  inward  operation  of  the  Sanctifier. 
In  the  one,  God's  government  is  justified;  and  by  the  other, 
man's  character  is  sanctified. 

First,  the  intervention  must  provide  for  the  vindication 
of  the  Divine  government. 

"  Of  law,  there  can  be  no  less  acknowledged  than  that  her 
seat  is  in  the  bosom  of  God ;  her  voice,  the  harmony  of  the 
world ;  all  things  in  heaven  and  earth  do  her  homage,  the  very 
least  as  feeling  her  care,  and  the  greatest  as  not  exempted 
from  her  power ;  both  angels  and  creatures  of  what  condition 
soever,  though  each  in  different  sort  and  manner,  admiring  her 


THE  RESTORATION  OF  MAN.  475 

as  the  mother  of  their  peace  and  joy/'*  If  so  much  can  be 
justly  said  of  law,  what  is  to  be  said  of  those  who  have  set  this 
law  at  defiance,  and  that  under  its  most  sacred  form — the  form 
of  moral  law  ?  No  proposed  scheme  for  dispensing  pardon 
deserves  to  be  looked  at  which  does  not  provide  a  means  of  up- 
holding that  law. 

This  moral  law  points  to  God  as  giving  and  defending  it,  and 
when  we  look  to  him  we  are  constrained  by  our  moral  nature  to 
regard  him  as  a  being  who  hates  evil  and  who  punishes  it. 
The  conscience  of  man  not  only  approves  of  the  good  but  dis- 
approves of  the  evil,  and  declares  that  the  evil  is  deserving  of 
punishment.  Besides,  an  abhorrence  of  evil  is  an  essential 
element  in  holy  exercises  of  will.  If  we  follow  out  the  intima- 
tions given  by  these  facts  of  our  moral  constitution,  we  must 
believe  that  God  hates  sin,  and  that  as  upholder  of  the  law  and 
Governor  of  the  world,  he  ought  to  punish  transgression.  We 
have  the  very  same  evidence  of  all  this,  as  we  have  of  the  fact 
that  God  approves  of  the  good,  and  will  reward  it.  We  are 
entitled  to  say,  not  metaphorically  or  anthropomorphologically, 
or  in  the  way  of  accommodation  to  man,  but  literally  and  truly, 
that  God  hates  sin — not  as  a  personal  offence  against  himself — 
but  that  he  hates  sin  as  sin,  and  has  a  feeling  of  holy  indigna- 
tion against  the  perpetrator.f     He  who  proposes  to  provide  a 

*  Hooker's  Ecclesiastical  Polity. 

f  All  systems  of  atonement  (that  of  Mr.  Maurice,  for  example)  are  defective, 
■which  do  not  embrace  (along  with  other  elements)  a  means  of  reconciling  a  God 
who  hates  and  who  punishes  sin.  But  let  it  be  carefully  observed,  that  it  is  not 
a  retaliation  or  revenge  for  a  personal  offence  that  God  is  supposed  to  require. 
This  is  the  only  idea  of  an  atonement  which  some  (  e.g.  Mr.  Greg  in  his  Creed  of 
Christendom,  p  262)  are  able  to  entertain,  and  hence  they  wonder  how  God 
should  not  at  once  forgive  sin  as  man  may  forgive  a  personal  slight.  But  we  have 
seen  in  examining  the  moral  constitution  of  man,  that  the  disapproval  of  sin,  (see 
p.  341,)  and  the  hatred  of  sin,  (p.  314,)  differ  in  their  whole  nature  from  the  mere 
resentment  on  account  of  offence  given,  (p.  425.)  The  two  first  belong  to  the 
moral  constituents  of  man,  the  conscience,  and  the  will,  and  the  last  to  his  emo- 
tional nature.  It  has  been  customary  with  these  same  parties,  Christian  and 
Antichristian,  to  represent  the  punishment  of  sin  as  merely  something  following 
sin  in  the  course  of  things,  "  not  the  execution  of  a  sentence,  but  the  occurrence  of 
an  effect  "  True,  it  is  an  effect  following  in  the  course  of  things,  but  the  question 
arises,  who  hath  appointed  this  order  of  things  ?  Tile  course  of  events  might  surely 
have  been  otherwise.  The  course  of  tilings  brings  punishment  because  God  hath 
so  appointed  it,  and  God  hath  so  appointed  it  because  he  hates  sin.  In  order  to 
avoid  the  effect,  there  must  be  a  means  of  rendering  satisfaction  to  the  justice  of 
God. 


476  WHAT  IS  NEEDFUL  IN  ORDER  TO 

scheme  by  which  the  sinner  can  be  received  into  favour,  must 
not  be  allowed  to  overlook  these  essential  elements  of  the  Divine 
nature  and  perfections. 

In  contemplating  its  moral  state  and  the  relation  in  which  it 
stands  to  God,  the  mind  of  man  has  ever  felt  in  its  unsophisti- 
cated musings  that  there  must  be  some  satisfaction  eriven  to  God 
and  his  law.  Hence  the  services  which  the  heathen  have  paid 
to  God,  and  the  sacrifices  which  they  have  offered  with  the  view 
of  appeasing  him.  These  "  unconscious  prophecies  "  (as  Trench 
has  called  them)  of  the  one  great  offering  and  sacrifice,  shew 
that  man  feels  his  need  of  reconciliation  with  a  God  who  has  had 
just  cause  of  displeasure.  Yet  they  point  to  the  need  of  a  true 
saviour  less  by  what  they  furnish  than  by  its  palpable  insuffi- 
ciency to  effect  the  end  contemplated.  What  man  brings  shews 
that  he  has  felt  the  void,  but  shews,  too,  that  he  cannot  fill  it. 
The  remedies  applied  prove  that  disease  exists,  but  prove  at  the 
same  time  that  they  are  unfit  to  heal  it. 

There  is  something  in  man's  nature  which  intimates  that  God, 
in  calling — as  he  does  call — his  creatures  into  judgment,  demands 
of  them  that  they  bring  an  obedience.  It  is  because  of  this 
deeply  seated  feeling  that  there  are  such  exertions  made  by  the 
thoughtful  to  procure  a  righteousness ;  heuce  the  ceremonial 
services  to  which  mankind  naturally  resort,  "going  about  to 
establish  a  righteousness  of  their  own."  Need  we  shew  how  vain 
the  attempt  ?  For  why  does  God  demand  obedience  ?  It  is 
because  of  his  very  nature  and  character  as  a  just  God,  and  from 
the  relation  in  which  he  stands  to  his  creatures  as  their  Governor. 
But  the  same  attribute  of  God  which  leads  him  to  demand 
obedience,  makes  him  also  demand  that  it  be  an  obedience  in  all 
things,  at  all  times,  and  in  all  places.  The  conscience  is  in  this 
respect  in  unison  with  the  "Word  of  God,  and  announces  that 
the  righteousness  which  man  brings  should  be  spotless  and  per- 
fect. But  then,  in  transacting  with  God,  no  given  man  can 
present  any  such  righteousness. 

As  feeling  this,  man  has  ever  anxiously  looked  round  for  a 
substitute,  and  would  fondly  believe  that  he  has  found  such  in 
a  priesthood,  or  in  some  creature  representative.  But  the  pro- 
posed substitution,  while  it  shows  the  feeling  of  need,  only  brings 
out  the  more  strikingly  the  impotence  of  the  remedy.  For  a 
fellow-man,  from  the  circumstance  that  he  is  a  sinner,  cannot 


THE  RESTORATION  OF  MAN.  477 

give  for  himself  such  an  obedience  as  God  exacts,  and  still  less 
can  he  give  it  for  others.  Nay,  no  other  creature  of  God  can 
provide  such  a  righteousness  for  him,  for  every  creature  is  re- 
quired as  for  himself  to  fulfil  the  universal  law  of  God,  and 
after  he  has  loved  the  Lord  with  all  his  heart  and  discharged 
every  commanded  duty,  he  has  not  acquired  any  merit  oi 
supererogation  to  be  carried  over  to  the  account  of  another. 
Not  only  so,  but  it  might  seem  as  if  God  himself  were  pre- 
cluded from  providing  anything  to  suit  the  transgressor,  and 
that  this  inability  arose  from  his  very  greatness.  The  right- 
eousness required  of  man  is  obedience,  and  the  only  righteous- 
ness which  can  be  of  any  use  to  him  must  partake  of  the 
nature  of  obedience.  But  God,  as  the  author  of  the  law,  the 
Governor  of  the  world,  cannot  give  obedience.  Herein  lay  the 
difficulty  in  the  way  of  the  restoration  of  a  fallen  being. 
Incapable  of  redeeming  himself,  no  creature  can  possibly 
have  any  superfluous  righteousness  to  impute  to  him,  and 
it  might  seem  as  if  God  himself  could  not  provide  what  man 
requires. 

Three  important  facts  are  now  before  us.  Man  has  felt  the 
want ;  he  has  tried  to  supply  it ;  and  he  has  failed.  Feeling  that 
the  heavens  are  at  such  a  distance,  he  woifld  construct  a  chain 
by  which  to  mount  to  them,  and  he  finds  that  he  has  nothing 
whereon  to  hang  it.  But  where  man  has  failed,  God  has  suc- 
ceeded, and  by  means  which  man  could  not  have  anticipated, 
but  which,  when  announced,  commend  themselves  to  his  moral 
nature  as  fitted  to  meet  the  evils  which  he  had  ever  been 
endeavouring  to  remedy,  but  without  success. 

It  is  when  we  consider  it  in  its  fitness  to  solve  all  these  pro- 
blems, and  harmonize  all  these  oppositions,  that  we  see  the 
manifold  wisdom  of  the  mystery  once  hid  but  now  unfolded, 
"  the  mystery  of  godliness,  God  manifest  in  the  flesh."  The 
majesty  of  the  law  is  upheld,  the  justice  of  God  is  satisfied,  and 
an  obedience  is  provided  by  one  from  whom  obedience  is  not 
required  as  for  himself,  but  who  has  power  in  himself,  and 
puts  himself  in  circumstances  to  render  it.  In  order  to  accom- 
plish these  ends,  and  to  display  at  one  and  the  same  time  the 
two  essential  moral  attributes  of  God,  his  justice,  and  his 
benevolence,  one  of  the  persons  of  the  ever-existing  and  ever- 
blessed  Godhead  associates  himself  with  humanity,  and  becomes 


"  obedient  unto  death,"  fulfilling  the  law  in  its  precepts,  and 
submitting  to  its  penalr 

-  I  ea  pjfied  thee  di       fHE  IABTH."    We  reckon  this 

language  narkable.     We  know  not  if  God  has  been 

'>  honoured  anywhere  throughout  a  boundless  universe  so  mnch 
as  he  has  been  upon  the  earth.  Revelation,  indeed,  speaks  of 
the  angels  who  fell :  but,  with  their  exception,  we  know  not  if  any 
other  creature-    :  God,  in  anv  other  world,  have  so  dishonoured 

• 

him  by  breaking  his  commandments ;  and  in  regard  to  them, 
the  righteousness  of  God  was  instantly  vindicated  by  tL  ing 

consigned  to  punishment  Bnt  for  these  four  thousand  years 
which  had  run  their  course,  before  the  appointe  :  came 

down  I  thk  earth,  one  generation  of  men  after  another  had 
gone  on  dishonouring  his  name  and  breaking  his  laws  with 
apparent  impunity.  Never  ha  i  'iod  been  so  dishonoured  with- 
out an  instant  and  public  vindication  of  bis  justice.  But  on  the 
.rth  wh-  had  been  so  dishonoured,  is  he  now  glorified. 

Tins  is  I  :.  in  the  work  of  the  appointed  Substitute,  in  which 
magnified  and  made  honourable,  and  divine  justice 
satisfied,  while  room  is  opened  up  for  the  fullest  manifestation 
of  the  divine  mercy.  Hiie  is  done  in  the  name  and  nature  of 
those  who  had  so  dishonoured  God,  so  that,  as  by  man  God  has 
been  dishonoured,  by  man  God  is  now  glorified.  All  this  is 
done  at  the  very  place  at  which  the  wickedness  of  man  had  been 
so  great :  so  that,  as  on  the  earth  God  had  been  dishonoured, 
so  now,  on  the  earth,  God  is  glorified. 

That  we  may  be  the  more  forcibly  impressed  with  this  exhibi- 
ta  a  of  the  divine  glory,  let  us  :         -.  in  imagination, 

into  the  heart  :  those  dark  scenes  into  which  the  Redeemer  is 
represented  as  having  entered  immediately  after  the  utterance  of 
the  words  on  which  we  have  been  commenting.  At  the  darkest 
hour  of  that  night,  a  band  of  officers,  headed  by  an  apostate 
ap  jlaring  torches  to  apprehend  him.    His  other 

follower?,  after  showing  a  momentary  courage,  speedily  abandon 

He  is  dragged  before  the  tribunal  of  the  high  pri 
where,  on  the  testimony  of  lying  witnesses,  bribed  for  the  pur- 
pose, that  high  priest  pronoun :  ntence  of  condemnation  on 
him,  from  whom,  though  he  little  thinks  of  it  his  office  derives 
all  its  authority.  In  the  courts  of  the  judg  .ear,  mingled 
with  the  scoffs  and  jeers  of  the  multitude,  the  cursing,  swearing, 


THE  RESTORATION  OF  MAN.  479 

and  open  falsehood  of  an  apostle.     He  is  now  carried  to  the 
judgment  of  the  civil  governor,  by  whom  the  decision  is  referred 
to  the  people,  who  loudly  demand  that  he  should  be  exposed  to 
the  most  painful  and  humbling  of  all  deaths,  and  the  governor, 
convinced  all  the  time  of  his  innocence,  orders  him  to  be  cruci- 
fied.    All  parties  take  their  part  in  the  scene.     The  soldiers 
scourge  him  ;  and  as  he  moves  along  the  streets  of  that  city 
which  had  heard  his  discourses  of  unparalleled  wisdom,  and 
witnessed  his  miracles  of  astonishing  power,  the  multitude  cover 
him  with  infamy.     It  is  amidst  derision  that  he  is  nailed  to  the 
accursed  tree.     His  dying  agonies  move  no  compassion.    One  of 
the  thieves  crucified  along  with  him  reviles  him,  as  a  greater 
malefactor  than  himself.      His   prayers,   breathing   of  divine 
compassion  and  melting  love,  are  answered  back  by  reproaches 
and  scorn.     Where  else  can  such  concentrated  wickedness  be 
met  with  ?     Blindness  and  darkness  of  mind,  unbelief  in  spite 
of  overwhelming  evidence,  ingratitude  for  unnumbered  favours, 
injustice,  perjury,  profanity,  malignity,  unappeasable  revenge,— 
and  all  this  against  the  meekest  of  all  men— all  this  against 
God  who  is  blessed  for  ever.     It  might  seem  as  if  God  had 
never  been  so  insulted  and  defied.     We  wonder  not  that  the 
earth  should  have  trembled  and  shuddered,  as  if  desirous  to 
cast  forth  such  wickedness  from  its  bosom.   We  wonder  not  that 
the  sun  should  have  hid  his  face  as  unable  to  look  on  such  a 
scene,  more  horrific  than  the  most  wicked  which  he  had  seen  in 
all  his  unwearied  rounds.     But  it  was  at  the  very  place  at  which 
man  was  most  dishonouring  God  that  his  representative  was  glori- 
fying him.    Where  man  was  exhibiting  the  most  appalling  wick- 
edness, there  his  surety  was  giving  the  most  signal  display  of 
goodness.     Where  man,  breaking  loose  from  all  restraint,  was 
abandoning  himself  to  open  rebellion,  there  his  substitute  was 
becoming  obedient  even  unto  death.    Where  the  wildest  passions 
that  ever  stirred  the  human  heart  were  raging  uncontrolled,  there 
one  in  our  own  name  and  nature  was  giving  the  most  moving 
display  of  a  tenderness  which  could  not  be  ruffled,  and  of  a  love 
which  could  not  be  quenched.    Where  sin  abounded,  there  right- 
eousness did  much  more  abound.     The  representative  is  lifted 
high  upon  the  cross,  that  he  might  become  a  spectacle,  and  in 
the  view  of  all  men,  in  the  view  of  wondering  angels,  and  in  the 
view  of  God,  glorify  God  wherein  he  had  been  most  dishonoured. 


480  WHAT  IS  NEEDFUL  IN  ORDER  TO 

We  may  now  define  and  gather  into  a  head  the  general 
observations  which  have  passed  before  us. 

In  contemplating  this  world,  the  thinking  mind  discovers  a 
twofold  derangement,  and  each  presenting  itself  under  a  twofold 
aspect.  Under  one  aspect  we  observe  a  government  obviously 
orderly,  yet  filled  with  disorder.  Under  another  aspect  we  per- 
ceive man,  a  sinful  being,  covered  with  kindness,  and  yet  called 
to  give  an  account  of  his  deeds  to  a  God  who  hates  sin.  These 
four  facts  will  not  be  disputed  by  any  man  who  has  thoughtfully 
contemplated  the  world,  or  seriously  examined  his  own  nature. 
We  everywhere  meet  with  order,  and  also  with  sin,  which  is 
certainly  disorder.  The  same  moral  nature  announces  to  us 
that  God  hates  sin,  and  that  man  has  sinned.  It  must  be 
difficult  for  a  reflecting  mind  to  deny  any  one  of  these  four  facts 
— almost  as  difficult  as  to  deny  the  very  existence  of  God,  or 
the  distinction  between  good  and  evil.  How  wonderful,  that  in 
a  system  originating  in  the  sequestered  land  of  Judah,  we  should 
have  a  plan  in  which  they  are  all  embraced  and  reconciled,  the 
double  derangement  which  they  exhibit  provided  for,  and  mere} 
extended  to  the  reconciled  transgressor,  while  the  order  of  the 
Divine  government  is  upheld,  and  the  justice  of  God  completely 
satisfied  !  That  land,  shut  out  from  intercourse  with  the  rest  of 
the  world,  must,  we  are  constrained  to  believe,  have  had  a 
special  communication  with  heaven. 

SECT.   III. WHAT    IS   NEEDFUL    IN    ORDER    TO    THE     RESTORATION 

OF  MAN (2.)    IN    ITS  RELATION   TO  THE    CHARACTER  OF   MAN  ; 

THE    NEED  OF   AN    INTERPOSITION    IN  THE    HUMAN   HEART   AND 
CHARACTER. 

The  need  of  such  an  interposition,  in  order  to  the  rectification 
of  a  clamant  evil,  becomes  visible  whether  we  look  at  society  at 
large,  or  inspect  our  own  bosoms. 

The  infidel  writers  of  last  century  were  wont,  in  furtherance 
of  the  objects  which  they  had  in  view,  to  represent  savage  life 
as  one  of  spotless  innocence  and  perfect  peace.  The  visits  of 
travellers,  sufficiently  shrewd  to  look  beneath  the  surface,  have 
served  to  dispel  the  illusion,  and  to  demonstrate  that  there  is 
more  cunning  and  deceit,  and  no  less  selfishness  and  malignity, 
among  rude  than  among  civilized  nations. 


THE  RESTORATION  OF  MAN.  481 

Again,  there  are  persons  who  announce  with  oracular  authority 
that  advancing  civilisation  will  change  the  very  character  of 
society.  They  forget  that  increasing  knowledge,  while  it  holds 
out  new  encouragements  to  excellence,  also  furnishes  additional 
instruments  and  facilities  to  all  that  is  evil.  The  art  of  printing, 
for  instance,  through  which  useful  knowledge  is  disseminated, 
is  also  the  medium  through  which  scandal,  vice,  and  irreligion 
propagate  themselves ;  and  this  they  are  doing,  to  an  incredible 
extent,  in  this  our  country  in  the  present  day,  through  the 
millions  of  noxious  publications  which  annually  issue  from  the 
press.  The  rapid  modes  of  travelling  and  communication  which 
modern  times  enjoy,  and  which  enable  the  good  to  exercise  a 
wider  influence,  admit,  at  the  same  time,  of  the  more  effectual 
and  speedy  transmission  of  all  that  is  corrupt,  baleful,  and 
infectious.  We  require  only  to  open  our  eyes,  and  not  to  shut 
our  ears,  to  discover  vice  presenting  itself  with  as  unabashed 
and  disgusting  an  aspect,  and  uttering  as  blasphemous  words  in 
the  present,  as  in  any  other  age  of  the  world.  In  some  respects, 
indeed,  civilisation  has  reformed  the  outward  man,  whitened 
the  outside  of  the  sepulchre,  but  it  has  left  it  within  as  full  of 
corruption  as  before. 

The  inhabitant  of  some  busy  town,  wearied  with  its  prevailing 
artifice  and  selfishness,  its  competitions  in  trade  and  rivalships 
in  rank  and  family,  repairs  for  a  season  to  some  sequestered 
village  or  secluded  glen ;  and  the  peace  and  serenity  that  reign 
around  him,  the  absence  of  all  turmoil  and  open  crime,  leave 
upon  him  the  impression  that  the  character  of  the  inhabitants 
is  as  lovely  as  are  the  works  of  God  among  which  they  dwell. 
Alas!  he  needs  only  .a  little  deeper  acquaintance  with  those 
who  seem  so  innocent  and  simple,  to  find  the  same  passions  at 
work,  and  the  same  feuds  and  jealousies,  as  in  the  bustling  city 
population.  The  countryman  repays  the  visit  of  the  citizen  at 
a  different  season,  and  is  surprised  at  and  delighted  with  the 
comfort,  the  elegance,  the  courtesy,  and  apparent  affection  which 
everywhere  fall  under  his  view.  It  requires  some  little  inquiry 
to  discover  that  pride,  vanity,  and  ungodliness,  are  beating  and 
reigning  in  bosoms  so  decked  and  adorned  as  to  conceal  every 
rankling  passion  within.  Should  he  go  forth  from  the  narrow 
precincts  of  the  refined  into  the  haunts  of  the  lowest  population 
of  our  cities,  lie  will  feel  his  sensibility  affected  by  deeper  sinks 

2  n 


482  WHAT  IS  NEEDFUL  IN  ORDER  TO 

of  iniquity  than  are  to  be  found  in  any  previous  age  of  the 
world's  history. 

All  classes  of  men  bear,  if  we  but  narrowly  examine  them, 
the  traces  of  their  common  lineage.  You  may  discover  them  to 
belong  to  the  race  by  their  sins  and  passions,  as  well  as  by  their 
bodily  frames  and  common  features.  This  common  nature 
breaks  forth  and  exhibits  itself  in  each  individual.  The  fond 
mother,  as  she  rocks  her  child  to  rest  on  her  bosom,  or  plays 
herself  with  its  playfulness,  is  tempted  to  think  that  one  so 
engaging  can  never  be  torn  by  wild  passions.  Yet  it  is  most 
certain,  that  this  child  will  no  sooner  begin  to  act  as  a  moral 
and  responsible  being,  than  it  will  show  an  evil  heart.  That 
child,  grown  up  to  youth,  and  engrossed  with  the  objective 
world  as  it  dances  before  the  eye,  and  seldom  looking  down  into 
the  dark  subjective,  is  just  as  unaware  as  the  mother  was  of  the 
wickedness  slumbering  within,  till  perhaps  it  has  carried  him  to 
a  length  at  which  he  sees  how  far  he  is  from  innocence,  but  feels 
that  retreat  is  cut  off,  and  that  there  is  nothing  for  him  but  to 
advance. 

The  remedy  for  such  evils,  in  order  to  be  effectual,  must  be  a 
universal  remedy,  admitting  of  application  to  all  ranks  of  men 
and  stages  of  society,  to  poor  and  rich,  savage  and  civilized.  If 
one  of  these  classes  requires  it,  it  can  be  shown,  by  a  like  reason, 
that  all  the  others  require  it.  Society,  as  it  advances,  opens  up 
more  exquisite  pleasures,  but  it  brings,  too,  more  exquisite 
pains  ;  it  multiplies  enjoyment,  but  it  multiplies  sorrow  also ;  it 
kindles  hopes,  but  it  often  quenches  them  amidst  fearful  an- 
guish. Our  readers  may  be  reminded  of  that  fine  passage  in 
which  Burke  speaks  of  the  pity  which  we  should  feel  for  the 
"  distresses  of  the  miserable  great,"  and  the  "  fat  stupidity  and 
gross  ignorance  concerning  what  imports  men  most  to  know, 
which  prevails  at  courts,  and  at  the  head  of  armies,  and  in 
senates,  as  much  as  at  the  loom  and  in  the  field."  "  They,  too, 
are  among  the  unhappy.  They  feel  personal  pain  and  domestic 
sorrow.  In  these  they  have  no  privilege,  but  are  subject  to  pay 
their  full  contingent  to  the  contributions  levied  on  mortality. 
They  want  this  sovereign  balm  under  their  gnawing  cares  and 
anxieties,  which,  being;  less  conversant  about  the  limited  wants 
of  animal  life,  range  without  limit,  and  are  diversified  by  infinite 
combinations  in  the  wild  and  unbounded  regions  of  imagination. 


THE  RESTORATION  OF  MAN.  483 

Some  charitable  dole  is  wanting  to  these  onr  often  very  unhappy- 
brethren  to  fill  the  gloomy  void  that  reigns  in  minds  which 
have  nothing  on  earth  to  hope  or  fear ;  something  to  relieve,  in 
the  killing  languor  and  over-laboured  lassitude  of  those  who 
have  nothing  to  do ;  something  to  excite  an  appetite  to  exist- 
ence, in  the  pallid  satiety  which  attends  on  all  pleasures  which 
may  be  bought ;  where  nature  is  not  left  to  her  own  process, 
where  even  desire  is  anticipated,  and  therefore  fruition  defeated 
by  meditated  schemes  and  contrivances  of  delight,  and  no 
interval,  no  obstacle  is  interposed  between  the  wish  and  the 
accomplishment."  Every  one  who  has  read  the  lives  of  the 
poets,  and  other  persons  possessed  of  that  fearful  gift,  the  gift 
of  genius,  knows  that  minds  finely  and  tensely  strung  are  fully 
as  liable  to  be  deranged  as  others,  and  need,  no  less  than  those 
who  are  exposed  to  the  temptations  of  wealth  and  rank,  the 
application  of  this  soothing  medicament. 

But  in  order  to  discover  the  real  depths  of  human  depravity, 
and  the  extent  of  human  helplessness,  we  must  look  beyond  the 
mere  outward  action  into  the  heart.  It  has  been  most  merci- 
fully enacted,  that  no  man  can  look  directly  into  the  heart  of 
another  ;  but  it  has  been  most  wisely  provided,  that  every  man 
can  look  into  his  own  heart,  and  he  is  so  far  entitled  to  take  it 
as  a  type  or  representative  of  our  common  nature.  But  no  man 
can  carefully  inspect  his  own  nature  without  being  constrained 
to  admit  that  he  needs  strength  higher  than  his  own  to  enable 
him  to  keep  the  law  of  God. 

But  if  there  be  some  one  under  the  impression  that  he  can  of 
himself  fulfil  the  will  of  God,  apart  from  supernatural  aid,  we 
invite  him  to  make  the  experiment  Let  him  determine  to 
perform  all  his  duty,  and  walk  for  ever  in  the  light  of  purity, 
and  all  by  his  own  strength  of  resolution.  We  are  ready  to 
admit,  that  there  is  much  which  he  may  do  of  himself.  He 
may  perform  the  ordinary  business  of  life,  discharge  the  cour- 
tesies of  kind  and  obliging  neighbourhood,  and  attend  to  the 
external  forms  and  observances  of  religion.  He  may  succeed  in 
doing  many  a  deed  of  kindness  to  a  neighbour,  and  in  refraining 
from  acts  of  open  immorality ;  he  may  acquire  the  habit  of 
uttering  a  cold  and  formal  prayer  morning  and  evening.  Some 
have  attained  to  a  character  so  becoming,  that  the  most  jealous 
and  prying  eye  cannot  detect  in  it  a  single  outside  blemish. 


484  WHAT  IS  NEEDFUL  IN  ORDER  TO 

They  have  become  as  righteous  as  the  straitest  of  the  sect  of 
the  Pharisees,  with  no  charity,  but  still  with  the  most  perfect 
correctness ;  with,  no  meekness  or  humility,  but  still  with  the 
sternest  rigidity.  But  let  it  be  remembered,  that  there  is  some- 
thing more  than  this  requisite  in  order  to  our  fulfilling  the  law 
of  God.  For  the  law  is  on  this  wise ; — that  a  man  love  the 
Lord  with  all  his  heart,  and  his  neighbour  as  himself;  and  that 
he  live  habitually  under  the  influence  of  these  affections,  and  of 
others  flowing  from  them,  and  obligatory  upon  him  in  the  con- 
dition in  which  he  finds  himself.  Let  the  person  who  is  inclined 
to  make  the  supposed  experiment,  ponder  this  law  in  its  purity 
and  extent,  and  the  probability  is,  that,  previous  to  making  the 
attempt,  he  will  be  oppressed  with  its  utter  hopelessness. 

But  there  is  a  self-confident  man  not  so  easily  appalled  by 
difficulties.  By  all  means  then  let  him  make  the  attempt,  and 
let  us  watch  him  as  he  does  so.  Let  him  resolve  to  create  this 
supreme  love  which  he  owes  to  his  Creator,  and  the  other  kin- 
dred spiritual  dispositions.  For  this  purpose,  he  seats  himself 
in  the  quiet  and  retirement  of  his  closet,  and  resolves  that  he 
will  induce  or  compel  himself  to  love  the  Lord  with  all  his 
heart.  Knowing  that  it  is  conception  that  determines  feeling, 
he  calls  up  an  image  of  God.  First,  he  pictures  a  being  of 
awful  majesty  and  infinite  power,  and  corresponding  feelings  of 
awe  and  wonder  rise  up  in  his  mind.  Again,  he  represents  God 
as  delighting  in  the  happiness  of  his  creatures,  and  for  an  instant 
there  is  a  pleasing  emotion  playing  upon  the  surface  of  his 
mind,  and  he  begins  to  imagine  that  he  has  been  successful. 
But  suppose  that  the  idea  of  the  holiness  of  the  Divine  nature, 
shining  in  all  its  dazzling  splendour,  now  rises  up  before  his 
view,  and  that  he  feels  himself  to  be  a  sinner  in  immediate  con- 
tact with  this  searching  light — we  venture  to  affirm,  that  the 
contemplation  will  become  less  pleasant,  and  that,  writhing 
under  an  unpleasant  inspection,  he  will  be  tempted  to  turn 
away  to  other  and  less  holy,  and  therefore  more  pleasing  topics  ; 
or  his  love  will  be  turned  into  slavish  fear,  and  he  will  scarcely 
dare  to  gaze  any  longer  upon  this  focus  of  light  in  the  heavens 
— and  the  brighter  the  beams,  he  will  be  all  the  readier  to  turn 
away  his  eye  to  the  lower,  and  what  is  to  him  the  lovelier  and 
greener  scenery  of  this  earth  ;  or  if,  in  obstinate  determination, 
he  continue  to  gaze,  we  venture  to  affirm,  that  the  very  light 


THE  RESTORATION  OF  MAN.  485 

shall  appear  as  darkness — as  when  the  eye  gazes  long  on  the 
sun,  he  becomes  shorn  of  his  greatness  and  grandeur,  and  is  seen 
a  blank  and  uninteresting  surface. 

Such  must  be  the  fruitless  issue  of  all  attempts  to  create 
spiritual  affection  to  a  spiritual  God.  The  man  may  say,  Let 
there  be  light ;  but  no  light  will  arise.  The  result  will  be  the 
same,  should  the  experimenter  attempt  the  performance  of  any 
of  the  specific  duties  which  he  owes  to  God.  But  if  not  con- 
vinced, let  him  make  the  effort  in  the  spirit  of  Luther,  and  the 
failure  will  tend  to  give  him  a  deeper  sense  of  the  ungodliness 
of  his  heart.  Let  him  resolve  to  repent  of  his  transgressions : 
for  this  purpose  he  would  call  up  his  sins ;  alas !  it  is  only  to 
find  the  treacherous  memory  dwelling  rather  on  the  good  qualities 
that  are  supposed  to  make  amends  for  them,  or  fixing  on  the 
pleasures  which  the  sins  have  conveyed,  and  so  tempting  him 
anew  to  the  commission  of  them.  Or  let  him  resolve  to  pray, 
as  is  his  duty ;  he  will  find,  that  even  while  the  words  proceed 
from  his  lips,  the  heart  is  blank  and  void ;  that  there  is  the 
attitude  without  the  feeling  of  reverence — the  prostration  of  the 
body  without  the  humiliation  of  the  soul.  He  may  bring  the 
sacrifice  to  the  altar,  as  the  priests  of  Baal  did  on  Mount  Car- 
mel ;  but,  apart  from  the  opening  of  heaven  to  let  down  an 
influence,  he  will  be  as  little  capable  of  kindling  it,  as  the  priests 
referred  to  by  cutting  their  bodies  could  bring  down  fire,  which 
at  once  descended  to  the  prayer  of  Elijah. 

Such  considerations  as  these  should  show,  that  as  spiritual  dis- 
positions do  not  spring  up  spontaneously  in  the  breast,  so  neither 
can  they  be  forced.  And  if  they  refuse  to  give  their  momentary 
attendance  when  called,  wljat  reason  have  we  to  think  that  they 
will  abide  ?  And  yet  it  is  required,  not  only  that  we  entertain 
them  at  certain  times,  as  when  a  present  object  calls  them  forth, 
as  when  in  a  temple  of  God,  and  listening  to  a  discourse  on  an 
exciting  topic,  or  to  music  which  causes  our  feelings  to  rise  or 
fall  with  its  notes,  but  that  they  be  cherished  habitually,  and 
become  the  guiding  principles  of  the  life.  Let  it  be  supposed, 
for  the  sake  of  argument,  that  our  experimenter  has  raised  a 
momentary  love  to  God  by  the  force  of  native  resolution ;  or, 
what  may  very  possibly  be,  that  he  is  temporarily  under  the 
influence  of  high  religious  emotion.  The  question  now  is,  Will 
these  feelings  continue  ?     If  it  be  difficult  to  kindle  the  spark, 


486  WHAT  IS  NEEDFUL  IN  OKDER  TO 

it  will  be  found  still  more  difficult  to  preserve  it  from  being 
extinguished  by  every  burst  of  earthly  passion.     It  is 

"  The  most  difficult  of  tasks,  to  keep 
Heights  which  the  soul  is  competent  to  gain." — Wordsworth. 

There  are  times,  no  doubt,  when  there  is  a  fervour  naturally 
produced  by  the  atmosphere  in  which  the  man  happens  to  be 
placed  ;  but  there  is  a  risk  that  his  emotional  temperature  will 
sink  as  he  goes  into  a  different  and  colder  atmosphere,  as  instantly 
as  his  bodily  temperature  when  he  has  gone  out  of  a  warm 
apartment  into  the  chill  of  a  frosty  night.  Every  careful  ob- 
server of  humankind  knows  that  there  are  certain  minds  which, 
like  mirrors,  reflect  the  object  passing  before  them,  but  only  so 
long  as  it  passes  before  them.  When  full  under  some  heavenly 
truths,  the  emotions  produced  are  lovely  as  those  images  of  rocks 
and  trees  and  clouds  which  we  have  seen  reflected  on  the  bosom 
of  a  tranquil  lake — beautiful  while  they  last,  but  removed  by 
the  first  ruffling  of  the  passing  breeze.  Not  only  so,  but  in  the 
natural  recoil  and  collapse,  there  is  a  possibility  that  the  high 
excitement  may  speedily  terminate  in  apathy  or  in  enmity.  The 
flame,  beautiful  while  it  lasts,  dies  down,  and  nothing  remains 
but  ashes.  There  are  tides  in  human  feeling,  just  as  there  are 
tides  in  the  ocean  ;  and  because  the  tide  is  flowing  now,  there  is 
no  assurance  of  its  continuing  to  flow — we  may  rather  fear  that 
it  will  soon  ebb  and  recede.  The  man  feels  a  momentary  inter- 
est in  religion,  and  he  becomes  vain  in  the  thought  that  it  is  to 
continue ;  and  this  very  vanity  becomes  the  passage  that  leads 
him  away  to  a  far  different  temper.  To-day,  he  weeps  over  his 
sins ;  and  before  he  is  aware  of  it,  he  is  rejoicing  in  iniquity  on 
the  morrow.  His  efforts,  even  when  they  seem  to  be  successful, 
are  merely  like  the  rippling  on  the  surface  of  a  stream  made  by 
winds  opposed  to  the  current ;  they  have  indeed  a  slight  effect, 
and  may  make  the  careless  spectator  imagine  that  the  waters 
are  flowing  in  an  opposite  direction,  but  meanwhile  the  current 
beneath  is  flowing  on  in  its  proper  course  as  determinedly  as 
ever.  His  elevations  are  like  those  of  a  ship  buoyed  up  on  the 
top  of  a  wave,  seemingly  above  the  earth,  but  never  so  high  as 
heaven,  and  from  this  height  he  is  apt  to  fall  into  the  contigu- 
ous hollow.  All  this  shows,  that  while  man,  by  his  unaided 
strength,  may  rise  a  little  above  his  habitual  level  of  earthlinesa, 


THE  RESTORATION  OF  MAN.  487 

he  cannot  soar  to  the  heavenly  regions  of  purity  and  peace  ;  and 
that  if  he  seek,  T cams-like,  to  mount  by  earthly  means,  his  flight 
may  only  make  his  fall  the  more  lamentable. 

Nor  is  our  argument  exhausted.  The  difficulties  are  seen  to 
be  immeasurably  increased,  when  we  consider,  that  man  has  not 
only  holy  dispositions  to  cultivate,  but  sinful  dispositions  to  con- 
quer. The  carnal  thoughts  and  feelings  found  in  such  rank 
luxuriance,  all  spring  up  with  a  native  and  spontaneous  power. 
We  think  that  we  have  succeeded,  at  some  particular  time,  in 
destroying  them  ;  but,  like  noxious  weeds,  whose  roots  are  inter- 
woven with  the  soil,  and  whose  seeds  are  scattered  throughout 
it,  when  cut  down  in  one  quarter  they  speedily  spring  up  in 
another.  But  should  there  be  some  one,  confident  that  he  can 
subdue  them  all  in  his  own  strength,  we  encourage  him  to  make 
the  effort.  Let  him  say  to  his  unruly  thoughts  and  passions, 
"  Thus  far,  but  no  farther,  and  here  shall  thy  proud  waves  be 
stayed,"  and  mark  if  the  waters  will  roll  back  at  his  command. 
There  will  be  times,  indeed,  when,  removed  from  excitement  and 
temptation,  he  may  think  that  he  is  succeeding  ;  at  their  natural 
ebb,  the  waters  may  seem  to  be  obeying  him,  and  fleeing  as  if  in 
terror.  But  when  they  begin  to  flow  in  full  tide,  he  will  not  be 
able  to  master  them  ;  and  they  will  roll  over  him,  with  as  little 
regard  to  his  commands  as  the  waves  once  rolled  over  the  feet 
of  the  Saxon  monarch,  who  showed  his  courtiers,  when  they 
were  seeking  to  give  him  too  exalted  an  idea  of  his  power,  how 
little  control  he  had  over  nature  without  him,  by  an  experiment 
not  unlike  that  which  we  have  instituted  to  show  how  little 
control  we  have  over  nature  within  us. 

This  evil,  then,  the  evil  of  man's  inability  to  raise  himself,  we 
find  pressing  upon  our  notice  in  all  directions ;  and  to  meet  it, 
we  find  the  revealed  redemption  proffering  the  supernatural  aid 
of  the  Spirit  of  God. 


SECT.  IV. — SAME  SUBJECT  CONTINUED — MEANS  OF  APPLYING 

THE  AID. 

We  are  now  to  mark  the  appropriateness  of  the  method  in 
which  the  aid  is  dispensed.  It  is  in  admirable  adaptation  to  the 
constitution  of  man.     The  four  indestructible  principles  in  the 


488  WHAT  IS  NEEDFUL  IN  ORDER  TO 

human  agent  are — the  Reason,  the  Conscience,  the  Affections, 
and  the  Will  ;  and  let  us  observe  the  manner  in  which  each  of 
these  is  addressed. 

I.  The  Reason  is  addressed.  We  are  required  to  believe, 
but  to  believe  on  evidence.  This  evidence  is  partly  external, 
arising  from  miracles  properly  attested,  and  the  fulfilment  of 
prophecy ;  partly,  indeed  chiefly,  internal,  being  such  adapta- 
tions as  those  we  are  now  considering,  many  of  them  being  as 
wonderful  and  conclusive  as  those  brought  to  prove  the  existence 
of  God.  In  this,  the  Christian  religion  stands  alone.  There 
are  persons  who  talk  of  the  rivalry  of  religions  as  an  excuse  for 
adopting  none,  but  in  this  respect  there  is  no  rivalry.  Other 
religions,  Pagan  or  Mohammedan,  claim  the  beliefs  of  their 
votaries,  on  the  ground  of  mere  authority  or  descent  from  an- 
cestors, of  terror  or  blind  feeling.  Of  all  religions,  Christianity 
is  the  only  one  which  professes  to  be  founded  on  evidence,  and 
which  is  at  pains  to  furnish  it. 

II.  The  Conscience.  (1.)  TJie  conscience  is  pacified.  Con- 
science, we  have  seen,  is  a  reflex  faculty,  judging  of  action  pre- 
sented to  it.  Sin,  presented  to  it  as  sin,  it  must  ever  condemn. 
The  sinner  finds  little  difficulty  in  deadening  it,  at  least  at  times, 
by  presenting  sin  under  a  false  aspect.  But  to  pacify  the  con- 
science, to  give  it  real  and  deep  satisfaction,  this  surpasses  the 
utmost  exertions  of  human  ingenuity.  And  yet,  without  such 
a  satisfaction,  the  conscience  will  ever  crave ;  or  if  occasionally 
lulled  into  slumber,  it  is  only  that  it  may  awrake  in  renewed 
vigour.  Repentance,  we  have  seen,  cannot  appease  it,  nor  can 
self-inflicted  tortures  assuage  it — they  merely  indicate  that  the 
mind  is  writhing  with  pain.  In  order  to  the  pacifying  of  the 
conscience,  there  must  be  clear  evidence  that  God  is  pacified. 
The  attempts  made  in  superstition,  under  all  its  forms,  show  that 
the  human  mind  feels  that  God  is  offended,  and  that  it  is  needful 
to  provide  a  satisfaction.  The  conscience,  in  telling  us  that  we 
have  sinned,  announces  that  God  is  holy,  and  cannot  overlook 
sin.  Nor  wTill  it  be  satisfied  with  a  declaration  that  God  will 
overlook  sin  ;  this  would  only  puzzle  and  perplex  the  mind,  as 
landing  it  in  a  seeming  contradiction.  The  announcement  that 
God  overlooks  sin  would  ever  be  met  by  a  counter  announce- 
ment, that  God  cannot  overlook  it.  Human  skill  has  not  been 
able  to  reconcile  this  contradiction  ;  and  so  it  has  never  sue- 


T3E  RESTORATION  OF  MAN.  489 

eeeded  in  doing  more  than  deceiving  the  conscience,  which  is  the 
readier  to  exact  revenge,  when  the  fraud  is  detected.  Bnt  if  it 
is  needful,  as  every  one  admits,  in  order  to  the  pacifying  of  the 
conscience,  that  God  be  pacified,  it  seems  equally  necessary,  in 
order  to  its  satisfaction,  that  a  ground  be  presented  on  which 
God  can  be  satisfied  in  consistency  with  the  holiness  of  his 
character.  In  every  system  of  proffered  mercy  in  which  no  such 
provision  is  made,  a  double  voice  will  be  heard,  as  it  were,  ringing 
in  the  ear — the  one  saying.  God  is  pleased  ;  the  other  saying, 
God  is  angry ;  and  the  mind,  instead  of  being  at  rest,  will  be 
distracted  between  them. 

But  let  us  mark  how  in  the  gospel  system  God  is  represented 
as  pacified,  and  pacified  in  strict  accordance  with  the  maintenance 
of  justice.  Under  it,  our  moral  nature  is  oppressed  with  no  sense 
of  incongruity,  when  it  is  declared  that  sin  is  forgiven.  We 
believe  not  only  that  the  heart  is  melted  by  the  expression  of 
the  Divine  tenderness,  but  that  our  moral  nature  is  made  to 
approve  of  God,  and  entertains  a  more  exalted  conception  than 
ever  of  his  unbending  rectitude.  On  the  scheme  being  presented, 
and  on  the  understanding  being  convinced  that  it  has  the  sanction 
of  heaven,  the  conscience,  the  feelings  are  satisfied — the  whole 
soul  is  satisfied. 

It  is  in  this  light  that  God  is  everywhere  represented  in  the 
Scriptures.  From  the  day  on  which  man  fell,  God  is  presented 
to  man  under  the  double  aspect  of  a  just  God  and  a  great  Saviour. 
The  sentences  pronounced  on  the  guilty  parties  in  Eden  tell  of 
an  offended  God,  who  lias,  however,  provided  a  means  of  recon- 
ciliation. Sacrifices  from  henceforth  become  an  essential  part 
of  all  acceptable  worship ;  and  in  them  the  worshipper,  laying 
his  hand  on  the  animal,  devotes  it  to  destruction  in  his  room 
and  stead,  in  acknowledgment  *that  he  himself  deserves  to  die, 
and  yet  in  confident  expectation  of  forgiveness  through  a  sub- 
stitute. The  ancient  Jew  prayed  morning  and  evening  with  his 
face  towards  the  tabernacle  or  temple  in  which  the  lamb  was 
being  offered  in  sacrifice,  and  this  in  token  of  his  belief  in  a 
means  by  which  his  person  and  services  were  accepted.  The 
types  of  the  Old  Testament  are  still  employed  in  the  New  Tes- 
tament as  means  of  communicating  instruction,  and  serve  the 
same  purpose  as  pictures  and  symbols  in  a  skilfully  taught 
elementary  school.     The  Old  Testament  is  not  superseded  by 


490  WHAT  IS  NEEDFUL  IN  ORDER  TO 

the  New.  The  one  is  a  preparation  for  the  other,  not  only 
historically,  but  also  to  some  extent  morally,  in  the  training  of 
the  mind  of  the  disciple.  Introduce  the  reader  into  the  New 
Testament,  untutored  by  the  Old,  and  he  will  feel  a  difficulty  in 
grasping  several  of  its  truths.  There  is  a  great  depth  of  mean- 
ing in  the  saying  of  an  apostle,  that  the  law  is  our  schoolmaster 
to  bring  us  unto  Christ.  Besides  supplying  a  body  and  a  life  to 
our  conceptions,  the  Old  Testament  ordinances  positively  give 
us  some  of  the  conceptions  themselves. 

We  have  seen  that  the  conscience  decides  according  to  the 
view  presented  to  it.  Hence  the  importance  of  right  conception, 
in  order  to  the  satisfying  of  the  conscience.  Hence  the  pains 
which  God  took  to  raise  a  people  in  ancient  times — the  Israelites, 
for  instance,  just  delivered  from  bondage  in  Egypt — to  correct 
views  of  God,  and  the  relation  in  which  they  stood  to  him.  All 
that  training  through  which  they  were  put,  has  been  handed 
down  to  us  as  a  legacy,  in  much  the  same  way  as  the  discoveries 
in  science  and  the  arts  are  handed  down  from  one  age  to 
another.*  We  become  trained,  as  it  were,  in  their  training, 
and  all  that  we  may  rise  to  correct  conceptions  of  the  character 
of  God,  and  of  the  relation  subsisting  between  him  and  man. 
We  confidently  affirm,  that  no  other  conception  of  the  Divine 
character  can  satisfy  all  the  essential  parts  of  the  constitution 
which  God  hath  given  to  man — can  satisfy  at  once  the  con- 
science and  the  affections. 

Such  is  the  view  presented  in  the  earliest  revelation  which 
God  gave  of  himself.  In  the  New  Testament,  the  same  view  is 
exhibited,  but  much  more  clearly  ;  and  we  have  "  Jesus  Christ 
evidently  set  forth  as  crucified,"  and  God  displayed  in  "  the  face 
of  his  Son."  "  The  only-begotten  Son,  which  is  in  the  bosom  of 
the  Father,  he  hath  declared  him."  So  far  as  we  are  under  the 
faith  of  the  New  Testament,  we  cannot  look  up  to  heaven 
without  discovering  an  advocate,  which  is  Jesus  Christ  the 
Righteous,  standing  at  the  right  hand  of  God,  or  a  Lamb  before 
the  throne. 

We  have  this  very  strikingly  exhibited  in  the  latest  revelation 

*  We  have  seen  (pp.  119-128)  that  there  is  a  typical  system  in  nature;  there  is 
also  a  typical  system  in  the  Word  of  God:  and  it  might  be  shewn  that  both  are 
suited  to  human  intelligence,  which  delights  to  think  by  means  of  images  or 
figures,  and  to  arrange  objects  according  to  types. 


THE  RESTORATION  OF  MAN.  491 

which  God  has  given.     The  apostle  who  closes  the  canon  of 
Scripture  is  carried  up  in  vision  into  heaven,  where  he  sees  an 
exalted  and  awful  throne,  surrounded  by  angels  and  saints,  and 
innumerable  living  and  immortal  beings.     Having  surveyed  the 
scene  in  mute  astonishment,  his  attention  is  called  to  a  book 
sealed  with  seven  seals,  containing  evidently  the  mystery  which, 
being  unfolded,  is  to  reconcile  heaven  to  earth.     A  strong  angel 
is  heard  asking  with  a  loud  voice,  which  fills  heaven  and  earth, 
"  Who  is  worthy  to  open  the  book  ?"     An  awful  pause  ensues. 
No  one  in  heaven  or  earth,  or  throughout  the  wide  universe,  is 
able  for  the  task,  and  John  weeps  over  the  weakness  of  creation. 
While  thus  desponding,  he  is  told  of  one  fit  for  the  mighty 
work.     He  turns  his  eye  to  see,  and  what  does  he  behold  ?     Is 
it  some  grand  and  imposing  sight,  is  it  a  splendid  throne,  or  a 
dazzling  light,  or  a  majestic  form,  is  it  the  mightiest  of  the 
angels  "clothed  with  the  sun  ?     No ;  as  he  looks,  he  sees  an 
emblem  of  weakness  and  of  sorrow,  of  suffering  and  of  death  ; 
the  sight  presented  in  the  very  midst  of  the  throne  of  God  was 
of  "  a  Lamb  as  it  had  been  slain."     There  follows  a  succession 
of  views  or  pictures  of  God  and  the  redeemed  ;  and  it  is  a 
remarkable  circumstance,  that  in  every  one  of  these  the  same 
image  is  presented.     He  obtains  a  lively  view  of  the  blessed 
inhabitants  of  heaven— and  "  they  stand  before  the  throne  and 
before  the  Lamb."     He  hears  their  praise,  and  it  is  "  Salvation 
to  our  God  that  sitteth  upon  the  throne,  and  unto  the  Lamb." 
A  question  is  put  as  to  the  past  history  of  those  who  now  stand 
in  white  robes,  and  it  is  said,  "  They  have  washed  their  robes, 
and  made  them  white  in  the  blood  of  the  Lamb."     He  sees 
them  in  the  enjoyment  of  the  glory  provided  for  them  :    "  They 
hunger  no  more,  neither  thirst  any  more  ;  because  the  Lamb 
that" is  in  the  midst  of  the  throne  shall  feed  them,  and  lead 
them  to  living  fountains  of  waters."     In  another  passage,  John 
is  represented  as  looking,  and  lo,  a  lamb  stood  on  Mount  Zion, 
and  with  him  a  great  multitude  ;  and  who  are  they,  and  whence 
their  joy  ?     They  are  they  "  who  follow  the  Lamb  whitherso- 
ever he  goeth."     In  one  of  the  closing  chapters,  we  have  a 
lengthened  description  of  the  holy  city  prepared  for  the  saints  ; 
its  walls  are  of  jasper,  high  and  deep,  with  twelve  foundations  ; 
its  streets  and  dwellings  are  of  pure  gold,  with  a  foundation  of 
precious  stones;    its  gates  are  pearls,   and  its  watchmen  are 


192  WHAT  IS  NEEDFUL  IN  ORDER  TO 

angels.  But  these  splendours  do  not  separately  nor  conjointly 
constitute  the  glory  of  heaven.  Its  chief  ornament  is  its  tem- 
ple :  "  And  the  Lord  God  Almighty  and  the  Lamb  are  the 
temple  of  it.  And  the  city  hath  no  need  of  the  sun,  neither  of 
the  moon,  to  shine  in  it,  for  the  glory  of  God  enlightens  it,  and 
the  Lamb  is  tlie  light  thereof."  The  sinner  is  made  to  feel 
that  he  dare  not  look  up  to  heaven,  unless  he  see  the  Lamb 
before  the  throne  ;  but  feels  that  he  can  look  up  with  confidence 
when  God  is  presented  under  this  aspect. 

Such  is  the  consistent  conception  of  God  which  the  Scriptures 
lead  us  to  entertain.  It  looks  as  if  it  were  the  conception  above 
all  others  (we  believe  there  is  no  other)  fitted  at  once  to  give 
satisfaction  to  our  moral  nature  and  our  sensibilities. 

(2.)  The  conscience  is  rectified,  It  is  one  of  the  most  melan- 
choly effects  of  the  corruption  of  man's  nature,  that  his  very 
conscience  has  become  bewildered.  Becognising  in  a  general 
way  the  distinction  between  good  and  evil,  it  makes  sad  mistakes 
in  its  particular  decisions.  The  deceitful  heart  has  taught  it 
the  art  of  looking  through  a  false  medium  at  the  sins  which  the 
possessor  of  it  commits,  and  thus  enables  him  to  enjoy  an  all 
but  unbroken  self-complacency.  It  is  difficult,  above  all  things, 
to  rouse  the  conscience  from  this  its  somnolence,  through  mere 
addresses  to  it  of  truth  derived  from  the  natural  conscience,  for 
against  all  such  appeals  it  hath  already  fortified  itself.  In 
order  to  its  being  roused,  there  must  be  an  a'ddress  from  a 
higher  region — there  must  be  a  voice  from  heaven,  recalling  it 
to  its  pristine  recollections.  We  have  heard  of  the  high-born 
prince,  lost  and  degraded  from  his  youth,  and  with  no  surviving 
knowledge  of  his  native  grandeur,  having  the  memory  of  it 
awakened  by  the  voice  of  a  friend,  who  had  been  with  him  in 
the  scenes  of  his  younger  years,  and  who  recalls  incidents  which 
make  the  forgotten  truth  flash  upon  his  mind.  There  needs  such 
a  voice — the  voice  of  a  pure  and  holy  law,  descended  from  the 
region  in  which  the  conscience  received  its  first  instruction,  to  re- 
call it  to  a  sense  of  its  present  disorder  and  primitive  destination. 

And  the  voice  which  rouses  it  must  continue  to  guide  it.  For 
never  did  it  feel  itself  so  helpless  as  now  when  it  is  awakened  to  a 
proper  sense  of  its  condition.  Before,  it  was  wandering  without 
knowing  it;  but  now  it  feels  itself  bewildered  as  in  a  forest,  and 
the  very  tracks  before  it  confusing  it  the  more,  for  it  knows  not 


THE  RESTORATION  OF  MAN.  £93 

which  one  to  choose.  Ever  going  wrong,  it  knows  not  when  it 
is  right ;  and  it  has  a  painful  feeling  of  the  need  of  something 
by  which  to  regulate  itself,  and  in  accordance  with  which  it  may 
move.  The  law,  then,  has  not  only,  in  the  first  instance,  to 
arouse  the  conscience,  it  has  to  serve  the  farther  purpose  of 
righting  it  in  its  motions.  When  it  hath  lost  its  delicate  sensi- 
bility,  and  its  power  of  direction,  there  seems  to  be  only  one 
method  of  restoration,  and  that  is,  by  placing  it  alongside  of  a 
pure  standard  of  right  and  wrong,  as  the  magnetized  iron  which 
hath  lost  its  virtue  is  restored  by  being  bound  up  for  a  time 
with  a  correctly  pointing  magnet. 

III.  The  Affections  are  gatned.  (1.)  Here  let  us  mark 
how  it  is  needful,  in  order  to  this,  that  the  conscience  be  ap- 
peased. An  evil  conscience  always  leads  the  mind  to  avoid,  as 
if  instinctively,  the  remembrance  of  the  party  offended.  There 
cannot,  then,  be  love  to  God  in  a  mind  in  which  conscience  has 
not  been  appeased,  nor  can  there  be  any  of  those  cognate  graces 
of  faith,  confidence,  hope,  and  jo3T,  which  ought  to  fill  and 
animate  the  soul.  The  appeasing  of  this  moral  avenger  is  an 
indispensable  preliminary  to  the  flowing  out  of  the  affections 
towards  God.  Provision  is  made  for  this  in  the  Christian  re- 
ligion, but  in  no  other  religion  recommended  to  man.  The 
philosophic  systems  have  no  proposed  method  of  appeasing  the 
conscience.  The  more  influential  of  the  superstitions  that  have 
prevailed  in  the  world  have  felt  the  need  of  satisfying  God  and 
the  conscience,  and  have  set  man  on  a  vain  attempt  to  accom- 
plish this  end  by  means  of  the  affections  which  he  cherishes  and 
the  services  he  pays,  forgetting  that  no  true  affection  will  be 
cherished,  and  that  therefore  no  acceptable  service  can  be  paid, 
till  first  the  conscience  is  assuaged.  Herein  lies  the  weakness  of 
all  the  philosophic  religions,  that  they  do  not  so  much  as  profess 
to  make  any  provision  to  meet  this  felt  want ;  and  herein  lies 
the  weakness  of  all  forms  of  superstition,  that  they  would 
accomplish  the  end  by  means  which  cannot  be  attained  till  the 
end  itself  is  attained.  The  former  do  not  so  much  as  profess  to 
give  what  to  the  sinner  is  a  prerequisite  to  the  commencement 
of  religion,  and  the  latter  set  us  in  search  of  it  in  a  road  which 
ever  leads  back  to  the  point  at  which  we  started.  In  Chris- 
tianity, and  in  it  alone,  a  provision  is  made  for  thoroughly 
cleansing  the  heart  from  the  sense  of  guilt,  that  thus  the  soul 


494  WHAT  IS  NEEDFUL  IN  ORDER  TO 

may  be  allured  upwards  in  holy  affection,  and  onward  in  prac- 
tical godliness. 

Not  only  so,  but  in  order  to  gain  the  heart  there  must  be  a 
free,  a  full,  and  instant  forgiveness.  It  must  be  free  ;  for  it 
cannot  be  purchased.  It  must  be  full  ;  for  if  anything  were 
left  unforgiven,  the  conscience  would  still  grumble,  and  the 
soul,  so  far,  would  be  in  a  state  of  enmity  and  rebellion.  It 
must  be  instant ;  otherwise  the  mind,  still  without  peace,  could 
not  begin  to  cherish  confidence  and  affection.  Nothing  short  of 
this  will  allay  its  agitated  waves,  and  allow  the  image  of  God, 
who  is  love,  to  be  reflected  on  the  bosom. 

Besides  this  instinctive  aversion  which  it  excites  towards  God, 
an  evil  conscience  is  ever,  it  may  be  unconsciously,  a  source  of 
irritation.  We  say,  Peace,  peace,  when  there  is  no  peace.  How 
can  there  be  peace,  when  the  soul  is  not  at  peace  with  its 
Maker  ?  And  when  the  soul  is  not  at  peace  with  God,  it  cannot 
be  at  peace  with  itself.  When  conscience,  as  the  regulator,  has 
lost  its  control,  all  the  other  principles  of  the  human  mind  are 
in  disorder,  and  are  moving  with  appalling  rapidity,  and  each 
in  succession  disturbing  the  soul,  and  all  adding  to  the  tumult. 
Instead  of  love,  peace,  and  trust,  there  will  be  instincts,  lusts, 
and  passions,  under  no  restraint  except  that  which  is  laid  upon 
them  by  their  jostling  against  one  another.  When  the  winds 
of  heaven  cease,  the  waves  of  the  ocean  gradually  rock  them- 
selves to  rest ;  and  when  the  conscience,  acting  on  behalf  of 
God,  ceases  to  lash  the  soul,  there  is  a  preparation  made  for  all 
the  thoughts  and  feelings  gradually  composing  themselves  into 
calmness  and  repose. 

(2.)  Let  us  mark  how,  contemporaneously  with  the  pacifying 
of  the  conscience,  there  is  presented  an  object  fitted  to  win  the 
affections,  now  at  liberty  to  flow  towards  it.  The  Saviour,  who 
delivers  us  from  the  condemnation  of  sin,  presents  himself  in  all 
his  loveliness  in  order  to  gain  our  hearts. 

"  Whom  having  not  seen,  ye  love."  Some,  we  are  aware, 
would  doubt  of  the  possibility  of  our  loving  an  object  which  we 
have  not  seen,  and  would  represent  the  affection  of  the  believer 
to  his  unseen  Redeemer  as  visionary  in  the  extreme.  But  in 
doing  so,  they  shut  their  eyes  to  a  property  of  our  nature  which 
is  every  day  in  exercise — truly,  there  are  persons  who  do  the 
greatest  dishonour  to  human  nature,  while  they  pretend  to  exalt 


THE  RESTORATION  OF  MAN".  495 

it.  Man  is  so  constituted  by  his  Maker,  as  to  be  able  and  dis- 
posed to  love  objects  that  are  distant  and  unseen. 

We  go  farther,  and  maintain  that  it  is  not  sense  which  kindles 
the  mental  affection  of  love.  It  is  conception,  the  conception 
of  a  lovely  object,  which  calls  forth  love  towards  that  object ; 
and  sense  aids  affection  only  so  far  as  it  aids  our  conceptions, 
and  in  making  them  more  vivid,  makes  them  more  fitted  to 
awaken  the  emotion.  Let  us  inquire  whether  we  have  not  in 
the  Scripture  representation  of  Jesus  everything  needful  to  call 
forth  emotion.  Let  us  inquire,  in  particular,  whether  we  have 
not  much  that  makes  up  for  the  want  of  sensible  manifestation. 

First,  we  have  in  the  Word  a  very  clear  and  lively  picture  of 
the  character  of  the  Redeemer.  When  the  information  commu- 
nicated to  us,  in  regard  to  any  given  individual,  is  very  vague 
and  imperfect,  it  is  difficult,  however  worthy  he  may  be,  to  fix 
our  affections  upon  him.  Had  we  been  commanded  to  love 
Jesus,  without  any  particular  account  being  given  of  his  life  or 
his  love,  and  without  the  lovely  features  of  his  character  being 
delineated,  it  must  have  been  very  difficult  to  obey.  But  in 
Jesus,  as  presented  to  us  in  the  Gospels,  we  have  everything  to 
attract  and  retain  the  affections.  0  that  we  had  but  lived  in 
the  days  when  Jesus  tabernacled  on  the  earth  !  is  the  wish 
which  will  at  times  rise  up  in  our  breasts.  So  situated,  we 
think  that  it  might  have  been  easier  for  us  to  love  him.  In 
opposition  to  such  vain  wishes,  and  the  gross  ideas  on  which 
they  are  founded,  we  maintain  that  we  have  a  view  of  the 
character  of  Jesus  as  much  fitted  to  engage  the  affections  as 
even  those  who  are  supposed  to  have  been  so  much  more  highly 
favoured.  Let  us  suppose  that  we  had  been  living  in  the  land 
of  Judea,  at  the  time  when  Jesus  was  working  his  miracles  and 
publishing  his  sublime  doctrine.  On  hearing  a  report  of  the 
new  Teacher,  we  hasten  with  the  crowding  thousands  to  listen 
to  his  discourse  ;  we  hear  one,  it  may  be,  of  the  most  beautiful 
of  his  parables,  or  see  him  perform  one  of  the  most  signal  of  his 
miracles.  The  whole  transaction  leaves  a  deep  impression  on 
our  minds  ;  and  because  we  have  seen,  we  believe.  But  in  the 
meantime  Jesus  and  the  crowd  sweep  by,  or  he  retires  to  the 
mountains  to  pray,  or  he  visits  some  other  part  of  the  land  ; 
and  we  are  constrained  to  return  to  the  cares  and  business  of 
life,  and  have  few  other  opportunities  of  meeting  with  him. 


49 G  WHAT  IS  NEEDFUL  IX  ORDER  TO 

Xow,  we  maintain  that  we,  who  have  the  full  Scriptures  in  our 
hands,  have  a  better  means  of  forming  a  full  and  attractive 
conception  of  our  Lord  than  even  those  who  lived  in  these 
apparently  so  favourable  circumstances.  In  the  writings  of  the 
Evangelists,  we  have  his  beautiful  discourses,  his  striking  par- 
ables, his  casual  remarks,  all  collected  within  a  narrow  compass, 
and  a  lively  delineation  of  his  conduct,  with  the  particular  inci- 
dents of  it,  by  parties  who  lose  sight  of  themselves  in  thinking 
of  their  Master,  and  never  interpose  to  obstruct  any  of  the  light 
which  comes  from  him.  We,  as  it  were — so  lively  is  the  painting 
— see  Jesus  acting,  and  hear  him  speaking,  and  that  in  a  great 
varietv  of  interesting  and  instructive  circumstances.  We  see 
him  while  with  his  disciples,  and  with  the  Jewish  doctor-  : 
amidst  the  acclamations  of  the  people,  and  amidst  their  execra- 
tions too  ;  as  he  rejoiced  over  the  conversion  of  sinners,  and  as 
he  grieved  over  their  hardness  of  heart ;  as  he  pitied  his  enemies, 
and  as  he  wept  over  the  grave  of  a  friend.  We  have  all  this,  in 
books  so  simple,  that  a  child  can  understand  them,  and  so  brief, 
that  a  little  space  of  time  will  enable  any  one  to  peruse  them. 

Secondly,  the  Being  whom  we  are  expected  to  love  is  con- 
stantly bestowing  favours  upon  us.  We  are  willing  to  grant, 
that  in  ordinary  circumstances,  distance  has  a  tendency  to  lessen 
the  regard  which  friends  entertain  towards  one  another  ;  but 
when  we  have  around  us  constant  memorials  of  our  friend,  the 
influence  of  separation  will  be  counteracted.  AVhcn  the  bereaved 
mourner,  when   the  widower,  for   instance,  looks  around   his 

7  7  7 

dwelling,  and  sees  in  every  part  of  it  the  peculiar  property,  or 
perhaps  the  very  workmanship,  of  a  beloved  consort ;  and  when 
the  widow  sees  in  every  child  that  clusters  around  her  knee  the 
image  of  a  lost  husband, — they  feel  as  if  the  departed  were  still 
present,  and  that  amidst  these  memorials  they  can  never  forget 
those  of  whom  they  are  so  reminded.  Xow,  the  believer  feels 
himself  to  be  thus  surrounded  by  memorials  of  God  in  his  works 
— in  the  heavens  and  earth,  and  in  his  wonderful  providence. 
The  fact  that  God  has  made  it  adds  a  new  lustre  to  every  star, 
a  new  beauty  to  every  flower,  and  the  meanest  of  the  works  ot 
God  carry  up  the  mind  to  the  great  Creator.  Distance,  we 
acknowledge,  has  a  tendency  to  lessen  the  affection  of  friends  ; 
but  this  influence  may  be  overborne  Avhen  the  friend  is  ever 
bestowing  substantial  favours.     The  believer  does  not  feel  that 


THE  RESTORATION  OF  MAN.  497 

God  is  absent,  when  he  is  constantly  sustained  by  his  power  and 
fed  by  his  bounty.  The  believer  in  Christ  connects  his  very 
temporal  mercies  with  the  work  and  sufferings  of  his  Saviour. 
"  Blessed  be  the  Lord,  who  daily  loadeth  us  with  benefits,  even 
the  God  of  our  salvation." 

Thirdly,  there  is  provided  a  means  of  communication  between 
the  believer  and  the  object  of  his  affection.  Granting  that  dis- 
tance may  tend  to  diminish  the  affection  of  friends,  we  find  this 
influence  lessened  when  they  can  correspond  by  letter,  or  have 
frequent  opportunities  of  meeting.  We  are  willing  to  acknow- 
ledge that  the  love  of  the  believer  would  grow  cold  and  languid 
were  he  shut  out  from  all  communication  with  his  God.  But, 
in  gracious  condescension,  God  engages  to  meet  with  those  that 
love  him — not,  indeed,  in  bodily  presence,  but  not  on  that 
account  the  less  truly,  effectually,  and  comfortably ;  and  love 
him  as  they  may,  they  are  assured  that  he  is  loving  them  with 
a  ten  thousand-fold  greater  affection.  It  is  one  of  the  most 
beneficent  of  the  effects  of  the  gospel,  that  it  provides  for  the 
renewal  of  that  fellowship  with  God  which  man  had  lost,  but 
after  which  he  is  still  aspiring  in  his  deeper  moods  of  mind.  In 
this  communion,  there  are  all  the  elements  to  be  found  in  the 
fellowship  of  a  man  with  his  neighbour.  In  human  fellowships 
there  are  four  elements — we  speak  to  our  neighbour,  and  he 
hears  us  ;  he  speaks  to  us,  and  we  hear  him  ;  and  thus  there  is 
a  thorough  interchange  of  thought  and  feeling.  There  are  the 
same  elements  in  our  fellowship  with  God  when  by  faith  we 
rise  to  it ;  we  pour  out  our  hearts  before  him,  and  he  listens  to 
us  ;  he  condescends  to  instruct  us,  and  we  attend  to  the  lessons 
which  he  is  giving.  With  such  means  of  communication  avail- 
able, the  believer  feels  as  if  his  Saviour  were  present  with  him 
alway  ;  and  so  far  as  he  still  feels  that  the  communion  is  dis- 
tant, so  far  as  he  still  mourns  an  absent  Lord,  it  is  to  desire 
more  earnestly  to  reach  that  place  where  he  shall  enjoy  a  closer 
and  an  unbroken  communion. 

Aided  by  such  circumstances  as  these,  it  is  possible  to  form  a 
vivid  and  abiding  conception  of  the  character  of  the  Being  whom 
we  are  required  to  love.  And  that  character  has  in  itself  every- 
thing that  is  grand  and  yet  attractive.  Just  as  there  is  a  beauty 
of  shape  and  colour  that  pleases  the  eye,  and  a  sweetness  of 
sound  that  delights  the  ear,  so  there  is  a  moral  loveliness  which 

2  I 


498  WHAT  IS  NEEDFUL  IN  ORDER  TO 

ought  to  draw  towards  it  the  affections  of  the  soul.  But  here, 
in  the  character  of  Christ  as  God,  we  have  all  kinds  of  beauty- 
meeting  and  harmoniously  blending.  The  excellencies  to  be 
found  separately  and  to  a  limited  extent  in  the  creature,  all 
meet  and  are  infinite  in  him.  We  profess  to  admire  true  ma- 
jesty when  we  meet  with  it ;  and  will  we  not  admire  the  Ancient 
of  Day?,  on  the  throne  of  the  universe,  amidst  the  hosts  of 
heaven,  and  exercising  dominion  over  unnumbered  worlds  ? 
"With  what  should  we  be  so  much  struck  as  with  spotless  holi- 
ness, which  shrinks  from  the  very  appearance  of  evil  ?  Alas  ! 
our  eyes,  as  they  wander  over  the  world,  cannot  discover  it 
among  men,  but  here  we  have  it  shining  in  beauty,  without  a 
spot  to  detract  from  its  loveliness.  Do  we  feel  ourselves  con- 
strained to  admire  benevolence  ?  and  will  not  our  feelings  flow 
towards  Him  who  hath  filled  every  part  of  creation,  air,  earth, 
and  ocean,  woods  and  waters,  with  animated  beings,  sustained 
by  his  power  and  fed  by  his  bounty  ?  Are  our  hearts  softened 
by  that  tenderness  which  can  forgive  an  enemy  and  receive  him 
as  a  friend  ?  and  will  they  not  melt  in  love  when  we  hear  of 
God  pardoning  the  very  chief  of  sinners,  stretching  out  his  arms 
to  embrace  them,  and  preparing  for  them  enjoyments  as  glorious 
as  they  are  enduring  ? 

And  there  are  qualities  in  the  person  and  character  of  the 
object  set  forth  to  our  contemplation  and  love  which  endear 
him  yet  more  to  the  heart.  In  the  very  idea  of  an  infinite  Go! 
there  is  something  calculated  to  overpower  the  spirit  of  weak 
and  sinful  man.  Man,  in  every  age  of  the  world's  history,  has 
been  afraid  to  look  upon  the  full  purity  of  God.  His  mi' 
pained  by  the  contemplation,  has  been  at  great  pains  to  carnalize 
a  spiritual  God,  and  embody  him  in  symbol.  Man  has  ever 
been  carnalizing  God,  and  in  carnalizing  has  degraded  him  ; 
but  here,  in  the  Christian  system,  is  a  God  incarnate  without 
being  degraded.  In  the  Mediator,  the  Divine  and  human  na- 
tures are  united,  and  in  such  a  manner  that  the  one  does  not 
destroy  or  overpower  the  other,  but  each  retains  its  own  pro- 
perties, and  the  whole  is  in  unity  and  harmony.  The  bright- 
ness of  the  Father's  glory,  without  being  shorn  of  a  single  ray, 
is  represented  under  a  milder  lustre.  All  coldness  and  distrust 
are  banished  when  we  remember  that,  in  drawing  near  to  Christ, 
it  is  man  coming  to  man.     Unbelief  is  dispelled  when  we  con- 


THE  RESTORATION  OF  MAN.  499 

sider,  that  we  have  a  brother's  heart  beating  for  us  upon  the 
throne  of  glory. 

As  in  water  face  answereth  to  face,  so  the  heart  of  man  to 
man.  There  is  a  universal  sympathy  between  the  members  of 
the  human  family — there  is  a  universal  language  which  finds  a 
response  in  every  man's  bosom.  The  cry  of  distress  on  the  part 
of  one  man  awakens  compassion  in  the  breast  of  every  other 
man.  Let  a  person  indicate  that  he  is  in  trouble,  and  numbers 
will  crowd  around  him  with  eager  curiosity  and  intense  emotion. 
The  language  of  feeling  and  sentiment  will  ever  stir  up  corre- 
sponding feeling  and  sentiment.  The  orator  and  poet  exercise 
such  power  over  mankind,  because  they  address  these  essential 
feelings  of  humanity.  While  our  hearts  are  naturally  drawn, 
by  certain  sentiments  and  sympathies,  to  every  other  man,  there 
are  certain  men,  or  classes  of  men,  towards  whom  our  hearts  are 
attracted  with  greater  force,  as,  for  instance,  towards  all  whose 
sensibilities  are  quick,  and  whose  heart  is  tender.  And  if  these 
persons  have  themselves  been  in  trouble,  if  their  heart  has  heen 
melted  and  softened  by  the  dispensations  of  God  pressing  heavily 
upon  them,  our  feelings  turn  towards  them  in  yet  stronger  con- 
fidence. Disposed  at  all  times  to  love  such,  our  hearts  are 
especially  turned  towards  them  when  we  ourselves  are  in  trouble. 
Whoever  may  feel  for  us,  we  are  sure  they  will  feel  for  us,  and 
we  pour  our  complaints  into  their  ears  in  the  assurance  of  re- 
ceiving attention  and  sympathy. 

Now,  this  principle  has  a  powerful  influence  in  drawing  the 
hearts  of  Christians  so  closely  to  their  Saviour.  The  tenderness 
and  sensibility  of  his  human  nature,  as  well  as  the  holy  love  of 
his  Divine  nature,  are  brought  before  us  in  almost  every  inci- 
dent of  his  life.  We  recollect  how  he  fed  the  hungry  and 
healed  all  manner  of  diseases  ;  how  he  restored  the  young  man, 
whose  dead  body  was  being  carried  out  of  the  gates  of  the  city 
of  Nain,  to  the  embraces  of  bis  mother. ;  how  he  wept  over  the 
grave  of  Lazarus  and  the  impending  destruction  of  Jerusalem, 
• — and  we  run  to  him  as  to  one  who  feels  for  us  under  all  our 
trials.  We  remember  how  he  himself  was  acquainted  with 
grief,  in  its  multiplied  and  diversified  forms,  in  body  and  in 
spirit,  inflicted  by  man  and  God  ;  how  he  was  often  an  hun- 
gered, without  a  home,  or  where  to  lay  his  head ;  how  the 
tongue  of  calumny  was  raised  against  him,  and  the  finger  of 


500  WHAT  IS  NEEDFUL  IN  ORDER  TO 

scorn  pointed  at  him  ;  how  the  favours  which  he  conferred  were 
met  by  no  corresponding  gratitude ;  how  an  apostle  betrayed 
him,  and  the  rulers  of  the  nation  condemned  him,  and  the 
people  demanded  his  crucifixion,  and  reviled  him  in  the  midst 
of  his  dying  agonies  ;  how  the  Father  himself  forsook  him  ; — 
and  when  we  remember  this,  we  feel  that  there  is  no  sorrow  of 
ours  which  he  will  not  commiserate.  The  friendless  rejoice,  for 
they  have  a  friend  in  him  ;  the  helpless  take  courage,  for  their 
help  is  in  him  ;  the  forsaken  lift  up  their  head  and  are  com- 
forted, in  communion  with  him  who  was  himself  forsaken. 

We  have  in  him,  the  Son  of  God,  and  the  Son  of  Man,  the 
image,  the  only  image  (every  other  is  idolatry)  of  God,  and  the 
model  man,  the  type  to  which  we  are  to  look  in  the  absence  of 
any  such  pattern  in  our  own  hearts  or  among  our  fellow-men. 
An  example  in  all  things  that  we  should  follow  his  steps,  he  is 
especially  so,  in  the  spirit  of  self-sacrifice  shewn  by  him,  so  un- 
like the  spirit  of  the  world.  The  great  among  men  have  become 
great  by  rising  from  a  lower  to  a  higher  degree  of  power  and 
honour ;  but  the  greatness  of  the  Son  of  God  consisted  chiefly 
in  this,  that  he  made  himself  a  of  no  reputation."  If  we  would 
but  think  it,  there  may  be  a  greater  glory  in  suffering  and  sorrow 
than  in  prosperity  and  splendour.  There  may,  for  example,  be 
a  greater  glory  in  the  soldier's  death  than  in  his  life, — there 
was  a  greater  glory  in  Samson's  death  than  in  all  the  achieve- 
ments of  his  life.  But  speak  not  of  the  glory  of  the  soldier 
bleeding  in  defence  of  a  nation's  rights ;  speak  not  of  the  glory 
of  the  patriot  toiling  and  suffering  for  his  country's  freedom  ; 
speak  not  of  the  glory  of  the  martyr  calm  and  rejoicing  while 
tied  to  the  burning  stake ;  these  have  no  glory,  because  of  the 
glory  that  excelleth,  the  glory  of  him  who  left  the  bosom  of  the 
Father  in  heaven  to  suffer  upon  the  earth  and  die  upon  the  cross. 

Such  is  the  provision  made  negatively  in  removing  obstacles 
to  the  flow  of  the  affections,  and  positively  in  furnishing  a  suit- 
able object  on  which  to  fix  them.  Could  any  other  than  the 
God  who  made  man  have  so  suited  the  remedy  to  his  nature 
and  constitution  ? 

IV.  The  change  is  accomplished  in  the  heart  of  man  in- 
complete   ACCORDANCE    WITH    THE    FREEDOM    OF    THE    WlLL. 

Several  interesting  adaptations  present  themselves  under  this 
head. 


THE  RESTORATION  OF  MAN.  501 

(1.)  There  is  a  means,  we  have  seen,  of  convincing  the  reason, 
and  there  is  also  a  means  of  gaining  the  heart.  These  are  not 
sufficient  of  themselves,  such  is  the  perversity  of  the  human 
mind,  radically  to  change  the  character ;  but  in  the  very  fact 
that  they  are  employed,  there  is  a  homage  paid  to  the  human 
will.  It  is  of  the  nature  of  the  will  to  be  swayed  by  motives, 
in  the  formation  of  which,  both  the  understanding  and  the 
emotions  act  a  part,  and  in  the  Christian  religion  all  these 
human  principles  have  their  full  play  and  liberty. 

(2.)  The  blessed  and  Divine  agent  who  produces  the  change 
commonly  works  through  ordinances  of  God's  appointment. 
The  main  means  is  the  truth  set  forth  in  an  inspired  Word,  and 
that  truth  of  a  kind  eminently  fitted  to  awe,  and  yet  to  elevate, 
to  convince  and  persuade  the  soul.  In  the  use  of  these  means 
the  mind  is  kept  from  indolence  and  inactivity,  and  yet  is 
obliged  to  be  humble  and  dependent.  The  Christian  is  spiri- 
tually put  under  an  economy,  not  differing  in  the  results,  though 
differing  in  the  means,  from  that  under  which  every  man  is 
placed  in  the  natural  providence  of  God.  In  the  use  of  the 
ordinary  means  which  commonly  lead  to  success  in  worldly 
matters,  no  man  is  absolutely  sure  of  securing  his  end,  owing  to 
the  cross  arrangements  of  Divine  providence,  (which  we  were  at 
pains  to  analyze  in  a  former  part  of  the  Treatise,)  while  yet 
there  is  such  a  prospect  of  success  as  to  hold  out  a  motive  to 
activity.  It  is  by  this  double  means,  as  we  have  seen,  that  the 
race  is  rendered  at  once  active  and  dependent.  It  is  most  in- 
teresting to  observe,  that  we  find  the  same  double  agency  in  the 
spiritual  dispensation  of  God,  and  that  in  this  respect  there  is  a 
beautiful  analogy  between  the  natural  and  spiritual  economies. 

While  there  is  a  resemblance,  there  is  also  a  difference.  In 
the  spiritual  economy,  the  means  employed  are  not  of  them- 
selves fitted  to  produce  the  end,  and  hence  the  Christian  is 
rendered  dependent  on  a  higher  power,  while,  at  the  same  time, 
they  usually  produce  the  end,  being  so  blessed  of  God,  and  so 
he  has  sufficient  motive  to  vigilance  and  exertion.  In  the  na- 
tural providence  of  God,  on  the  other  hand,  the  means  produce 
the  end  of  themselves,  but  may  be  thwarted  by  a  thousand  cross 
providences.  May  we  not  discover  a  design  in  the  very  diversity 
of  the  means  employed  ?  In  the  natural  providence  of  God  the 
means  produce  their  end  by  an  inherent  power,  and  so  invariably 


502  WHAT  IS  NEEDFUL  IN  ORDER  TO 

produce  the  end,  except  in  so  far  as  they  may  be  crossed  by 
other  agencies.  All  this  is  done  in  order  that  we  may  put  trust 
in  nature,  in  order  that  sight  itself  may  induce  us  to  cherish 
faith,  and  that  we  may  see  the  interposition  of  God  more  im- 
pressively, when  the  end  is  not  produced.  In  the  spiritual  pro- 
vidence of  God,  on  the  other  hand,  the  mean  has  no  inherent 
power  to  produce  the  end,  and  thus  the  Christian  is  prevented 
from  trusting  in  it,  and  made  to  look  more  devotedly  to  God  as 
the  true  and  alone  source  of  all  spiritual  excellence.  It  is  the 
manner  of  God  in  all  his  works  to  accomplish  the  same  end  by 
more  than  one  means,  and  we  may  discover  the  Divine  wisdom 
in  the  very  variation  of  the  agency  to  suit  the  circumstances. 

(3.)  We  do  not  perceive  the  agent,  who  changes  the  character, 
at  work  ;  but  we  conclude  that  he  has  been  working,  by  discover- 
ing the  effects  produced.  It  is  for  this  reason,  among  others, 
that  he  is  compared  to  the  wind.  "  Thou  hearest  the  sound 
thereof,  but  canst  not  tell  whence  it  cometh,  nor  whither  it  goeth  ; 
so  is  every  one  that  is  born  of  the  Spirit."  The  silent  nature  of 
the  Spirit's  operations  has  sometimes  made  his  agency  to  be 
denied  altogether,  by  those  who  are  ever  demanding  some  sen- 
sible evidence  of  the  truth  communicated  in  the  Word.  But  those 
who  urge  this  objection,  forget  that  many  of  the  most  powerful 
of  the  agents  of  nature  are  themselves  unseen,  and  are  only  to  be 
discovered  by  their  fruits.  We  do  not,  for  instance,  see  the 
wind  whether  it  comes  in  the  gentle  breeze  to  fan  us,  or  in  the 
hurricane,  to  work  such  devastation  among  the  labours  of  man 
and  the  very  works  of  God.  The  heat  that  nourishes  the  plants 
of  the  earth,  and  the  electricity  so  intimately  connected  with 
all  atmospherical  and  organic  changes,  move  secretly  and  in 
silence.  These  individuals  forget  that  God  is  always  himself 
unseen  in  the  midst  of  his  works.  When  we  walk  forth  in  the 
silence  of  eventide  to  meditate,  we  are  constrained  to  acknow- 
ledge that  God  is  everywhere  present  among  these  works  of 
grandeur ;  and  yet,  by  intense  gaze,  we  cannot  discover  his 
person,  nor,  by  patient  listening,  hear  the  sound  of  his  footsteps, 
No  jarring  sound  of  mechanism  comes  across  the  void  that  inter- 
venes between  us  and  these  heavens — no  voice  of  bcasting  reaches 
our  ears  to  tell  of  the  worker ;  it  is  the  heavens  themselves  that 
declare  his  glory.  And  why  should  the  God  who  created  us 
not  be  able  to  renew  the  heart  when  it  is  debased  by  the  effects 


THE  RESTORATION  OF  MAN.  503 

of  sin,  and  yet  be  as  unseen  in  the  one  case  as  the  other  ?  And 
there  is  a  manifest  congruity  in  the  circumstance,  that  this  agent 
conducts  his  work  so  silently  and  imperceptibly.  It  is  only  by 
such  a  mode  of  procedure  that  the  spirit  of  man  can  retain  its 
separate  action  and  freedom.  There  is  no  violence  done  to  man's 
nature  in  the  supernatural  work  carried  on  in  the  heart.  The 
dealings  of  God  are,  in  every  respect,  suited  to  the  essential  and 
indestructible  principles  of  man's  nature.  "  I  drew  them  with 
the  cords  of  a  man,  with  the  bands  of  love." 

V.  Given  a  fallen  race ;  to  set  them  on  a  career  of  active 
obedience — is  a  problem  which  all  reformers  and  philanthropists 
of  the  highest  order  have  been  endeavouring  to  solve,  and  with 
but  very  meagre  success.  Revelation  professes  to  have  solved  it, 
and  it  propounds  the  following  constructions : — 

(1.)  It  provides  a  pacified  conscience  and  a  pacified  God,  and 
both  pacified  in  agreement  with  the  law  of  their  nature.  Other 
and  mere  human  systems  make,  and  can  make,  no  such  provision, 
and  hence  their  partial  failure.  Under  a  reproaching  conscience, 
the  mind  feels  an  awkwardness  in  all  the  services  which  it  would 
pay  to  God.  When  the  servant  is  conscious  of  having  given 
offence  to  his  master,  there  will  always  be  somewhat  of  constraint 
in  the  obedience  rendered,  till  such  time  as  he  has  made  con- 
fession of  guilt,  and  obtained  forgiveness.  There  is  a  restraint 
proceeding  from  a  like  cause,  in  the  service  which  the  sinner, 
labouring  under  an  unpacified  conscience,  would  pay  to  God. 
Besides,  when  he  has  no  reason  to  think  that  his  past  offences 
have  been  forgiven,  he  feels  as  if  all  future  exertions  must  be 
utterly  fruitless.  After  he  has  done  his  utmost,  he  feels  that  he 
has  not  fulfilled  that  law  of  God  which  is  so  straight,  and  so 
unbending  just  because  it  must  be  straight.  Climb  as  he  may 
the  height  of  perfection,  he  sees  the  summit  rising  still  above 
him,  wrapped  in  darkness  and  lurid  with  flame.  After  he  has 
made  some  great  exertion,  he  looks  to  the  law  to  see  if  it  will 
give  him  a  smile  of  approbation,  and  he  beholds  only  a  dark- 
ening frown  upon  its  face.  Lashed  by  conscience,  he  makes 
greater  and  yet  greater  struggles,  only  to  feel  all  his  toilsome 
labours  to  be  like  those  of  one  labouring  under  a  load  which  is 
crushing  him  to  the  ground,  or  like  the  convulsive  struggles  of 
a  drowning  man,  whose  efforts  are  sinking  him  more  speedily 
in  the  waters. 


504  WHAT  IS  NEEDFUL  IN  ORDER  TO 

There  is  an  individual  who  has  contracted  a  load  of  debt  which 
it  is  impossible  for  him  to  pay  ;  and  who,  toil  as  he  may,  finds  all 
his  exertions  to  be  lost,  because  they  do  not  sensibly  lessen  his 
obligations.  Care  is  painted  on  his  countenance ;  fear  haunts 
him  by  day,  and  disturbs  his  rest  at  night.  The  load  which  is 
pressing  on  his  mind  comes  at  length  to  prostrate  his  energies ; 
he  flees  the  society  of  his  friends  ;  he  buries  himself  in  solitude, 
he  is  ready  to  give  himself  up  to  despondency  and  despair.  He 
has  lost  all  his  accustomed  energy  and  ingenuity,  because  he  has 
lost  all  hope  of  success,  and  all  motive  to  activity.  How,  we 
ask,  is  it  possible  to  rouse  this  man  anew  to  a  healthy  energy  ? 
We  know  of  only  one  way  in  which  it  can  be  effectually  done. 
In  his  hour  of  deep  mental  prostration  some  friend  runs  to  his 
aid,  and  supplies  him  with  all  that  is  required,  in  order  to  cancel 
his  debt.  The  man  now  feels  a  burden  lifted  from  his  breast, 
while  gratitude  for  the  seasonable  aid  is  quickening  him  to  ex- 
ertion, and  hope  is  anew  irradiating  his  path.  Behold  him  once 
more  in  his  customary  place,  holding  up  his  head  in  independence 
in  the  midst  of  his  associates,  engaged  with  his  wonted  energy 
in  the  discharge  of  duty,  and  regarding  all  his  past  difficulties 
as  only  an  incentive  to  additional  vigilance.  The  reader  will  at 
once  see  the  application  of  this  illustration,  as  fitted  to  lead  him 
to  acknowledge  the  propriety  of  that  scheme  in  which  the  burden 
of  condemnation  is  removed,  to  set  forth  man  upon  a  career  of 
renewed  obedience. 

(2.)  Eevelation  displays  a  supernatural  agency  to  lead  the 
soul  to  love  and  obedience  ;  this  agency,  reaching  the  innermost 
principles  of  the  mind,  and  that  not  to  do  them  violence,  but 
restore  them  to  order. 

(3.)  Revelation  displays  also  a  means  of  gaining  the  affections 
by  means  of  the  objects  presented  to  it.  The  service  now  paid 
by  the  reconciled  heart  is  different  altogether  from  the  previous 
service.  The  one  service,  the  legal  service,  was  irksome ;  the 
other  is  willing  and  cheerful.  While  the  one  is  the  task  of  a 
prisoner  who  cannot,  labour  as  he  may,  earn  his  freedom,  the 
other  is  the  homage  of  a  spirit  restored  to  liberty.  The  one 
proceeds  from  the  fear  which  prostrates,  and  so  is  restrained, 
limited,  selfish  ;  the  other  proceeds  from  an  inspiring  confidence 
and  a  ready  mind,  and  is  in  consequence  hearty,  generous, 
devoted.     In  the  one,  man  works  in  the  spirit  of  a  hireling, 


THE  RESTORATION  OF  MAN.  50o 

always  pausing  to  ask  if  he  has  not  done  enough,  and  if  his 
taskmaster  is  not  satisfied  ;  in  the  other,  in  the  spirit  of  a  son, 
who  loves  the  service  and  him  who  appointed  it,  and  is  ever 
asking,  if  his  Father  in  heaven  has  any  other  work  which  he 
wishes  him  to  perform  ? 

(4.)  There  is  a  beau  ideal  of  excellence  provided  in  the 
character  of  Jesus.  All  human  excellence,  whether  earthly  or 
spiritual,  has  been  attained  by  the  mind  keeping  before  it,  and 
dwelling  upon,  the  ideas  of  the  great,  the  good,  the  beautiful, 
the  grand,  the  perfect.  The  tradesmen  and  mechanic  attain  to 
eminence  by  their  never  allowing  themselves  to  rest  till  they  can 
produce  the  most  finished  specimens  of  their  particular  work. 
The  painter  and  sculptor  travel  to  distant  lands  that  they  may 
see,  and  as  it  were  fill  their  eye  and  mind  with  the  sight  of  the 
most  beautiful  models  of  their  arts.  Poets  have  had  their  yet 
undiscovered  genius  awakened  into  life  as  they  contemplated 
some  of  the  grandest  of  nature's  scenes — or  as  they  listened  to 
the  strains  of  other  poets,  the  spirit  of  poetry  has  descended 
upon  them,  as  the  spirit  of  inspiration  descended  upon  Elisha 
while  the  minstrel  played  before  him.  The  soldier's  spirit  has 
been  aroused  more  than  even  by  the  stirring  sound  of  the  war- 
trumpet,  by  the  record  of  the  courage  and  heroism  .of  other 
warriors.  The  fervour  of  one  patriot  has  been  create  1  as  he 
listened  to  the  burning  words  of  another  patriot,  and  many  a 
martyr's  zeal  has  been  kindled  at  the  funeral  pile  of  other 
martyrs.  In  this  way  fathers  have  handed  down  their  virtues 
to  their  children,  and  parents  have  left  their  offspring  a  better 
legacy  in  their  example  than  in  all  their  wealth,  and  those  who 
could  leave  them  nothing  else,  have  in  this  example  left  them 
the  very  richest  legacy.  In  this  way  the  good  men  of  one  age 
have  influenced  the  characters  of  the  men  of  another,  and  the 
deeds  of  those  who  have  done  great  achievements  have  lived  far 
longer  than  those  who  performed  them,  and  been  transmitted 
from  one  generation  to  another.  Now  we  have  such  a  model 
set  before  us  in  the  character  of  Jesus.  And  in  beholding  by 
faith  his  image  set  before  us  in  the  Word  as  in  a  glass,  our 
character  becomes  assimilated  to  his.  In  looking  with  open  face 
into  the  face  of  Jesus,  his  likeness  is  impressed  upon  the  soul 
as  we  have  seen  the  image  of  heaven  reflected  on  the  bosom  of 
a  tranquil  lake  spvead  out  beneath  it.     "  We  all  with  open  face , 


506  WHAT  IS  NEEDFUL  FOR  MANS  RESTORATION. 

beholding  as  in  a  glass  the  glory  of  the  Lord,  are  changed  into  the 
same  image  from  glory  to  glory,  even  as  by  the  Spirit  of  the  Lord." 

We  affirm,  without  any  risk  of  contradiction,  that  no  religion, 
rational  or  mythic,*  originating  in  human  wisdom  or  human 
history,  has  met,  or  even  so  much  as  attempted  to  meet,  these 
fundamental  principles  of  the  human  mind,  which  are  all  satis- 
fied in  Christianity.  It  is  surely  strange,  that  a  system  in 
such  beautiful  harmony  with  all  the  constituent  parts  of  man's 
nature,  should  have  sprung  up  among  the  hills  and  plains  of 
Judah.  We  could  believe  that  a  Hebrew  shepherd  composed  the 
Principia  of  Newton,  or  propounded  the  principles  of  the  Novum 
Organum,  or  the  profoundest  modern  work  on  metaphysical 
philosophy,  more  readily  than  that  he  could  thus  have  measured 
the  heights  of  the  Divine  character,  or  souuded  the  depths  of 
human  nature.  We  are  utterly  confounded  and  lost  in  amaze- 
ment, till,  above  the  plains  where  ancient  shepherds  tended  their 
flocks,  we  see  a  light  from  heaven  shining  around  them,  and  hear 
a  voice  guiding  them  to  the  Saviour,  which  is  Christ  the  Lord. 

But  we  have  reached  the  loci  communes,  the  common  places 
of  divinity  which  pious  divines  have  trodden,  while  the  steps  of 
peasants  have  followed  them.  These  are  the  topics  enlarged  on 
from  the- pulpit,  and  which,  followed  out  during  the  week  by  the 
ploughman  in  the  fields,  by  the  shepherd  on  the  mountains,  and 
the  mechanic  in  the  workshop,  have  furnished  them  with  the 
most  convincing  and  satisfying  of  all  evidences. 

*  The  objection  used  to  be,  every  faith  has  had  its  supernatural  events,  and  the 
miracles  of  Scripture  are  like  those  of  other  religions.  This  was  answered  by 
showing  that  the  miracles  of  our  Lord  were  entirely  different  in  their  nature,  and 
in  the  evidence  supporting  them,  from  the  miracles  of  heathendom.  The  objection 
now  is,  that  every  religion  has  had  its  myths,  and  that  the  narratives  of  the  Word 
of  God  are  mythical.  This  is  answered  by  showing  that  Scripture  history  is 
corroborated,  which  myths  never  are,  by  history7  acknowledged  to  be  true,  and 
that  they  are  different  in  their  whole  nature,  and  especially  in  their  moral  and 
religious  tone,  from  any  heathen  fables.  No  records  start  up  to  corroborate  the 
theogonies  of  Homer  and  Hesiod,  as  those  of  Nineveh  confirm  the  Old  Testament 
narrative.  No  human  ingenuity  could  extract  from  any  system  of  myths  a  pure 
morality,  and  still  less  a  means  of  solving  those  great  problems  regarding  the  re- 
lation of  God  and  man,  which  are  settled  in  Christianity.  But  as  the  tendency  to 
believe  in  supernatural  interpositions  shows  that  men  have  been  looking  for  a 
revelation  from  heaven,  so  the  disposition  to  embody  faith  in  myths  may  be  held 
as  showing  that  they  need  a  narrative  as  a  means  of  instruction  in  doctrine.  God 
has  furnished  in  his  Word,  what  man  has  ever  felt  that  he  needed,  but  was  unable 
to  supply — a  true  narrative  evolving  pure  precept  and  doctrine. 


ILLUSTRATIVE  NOTE.  507 

Illustrative  Note  (h.)— THE  GERMAN  INTUITIONAL  THEOLOGY. 

We  think  it  needful  to  distinguish  between  the  method  which  has  been  pursued 
in  this  work  and  that  speculative  spirit  which  some  are  seeking  to  introduce  into 
our  country  through  the  German  philosophy  and  theology.  Throughout  the  whole 
of  this  Treatise  we  have  been  examining  this  world  in  an  inductive  manner,  with 
the  view  of  obtaining  a  solution  of  some  of  the  most  important  questions  on  which 
the  mind  of  man  can  meditate.  These  truths,  if  we  do  not  mistake,  conduct  to  a 
well-grounded  belief  in  the  Uivinity  of  the  .Scriptures.  But  when  reason  has 
handed  us  over  to  revelation,  it  bids  us  listen  to  that  revelation.  This  witness  as 
much  as  says,  "  There  standeth  one  among  you  greater  than  I,  and  I  exhort  you 
to  look  to  him." 

There  is  an  end  for  the  present — and  we  should  hope  for  ever — to  that  boasted 
rationalist  school  which  prevailed  to  some  extent  in  our  land  in  a  former  age.  Its 
icicles,  thought  to  be  so  very  beautiful,  and  really  so  very  cold,  have  melted  away 
in  the  heat  of  a  more  fervent  season.  But  the  dreamy  sultriness  which  has  suc- 
ceeded is  as  unwholesome,  and  as  unfavourable  to  spiritual  life,  as  the  cold  which 
it  has  banished.  All  deep  and  earnest  thinkers  now  see  that  there  are  truths  in 
every  branch  of  science  too  high,  too  deep,  and  too  broad  to  be  denned  by  a  formal 
logic,  or  grasped  by  the  logical  understanding,  that  is,  by  the  understanding 
logically  employed.  Human  logic  cannot  define  electricity  or  heat,  nor  explain 
vegetable  or  animal  life;  and  how  can  we  expect  it  to  unfold  the  mysteries  of  the 
Godhead,  and  the  Divine  decrees '!  The  human  understanding,  so  far  from  being 
able  to  prove  everything,  needs  itself  a  basis  on  which  to  rest,  and  that  basis 
unproved  and  incapable  of  proof. 

Instead  of  the  rationalist,  we  have  now  what  we  may  call  the  intuitional 
theology.  It  is  not  now  the  understanding,  but  intuitions  of  thought  and  feeling 
which  are  placed  above  the  Word,  and  to  them,  with  the  Word  as  a  mere  servant 
or  assistant,  is  allotted  the  task  of  constructing  a  religion.  The  religion  thus 
devised,  if  not  so  consistent  as  that  formed  by  the  understanding,  is  vastly  more 
showy  and  gorgeous,  and  suits  itself  to  a  great  many  more  of  the  impulses  of 
human  nature.  As  in  natural  religion  the  blank  scepticism  of  former  times  has 
been  obliged,  in  the  present  day,  to  clothe  itself  in  the  dress  of  pantheism,  to  keep 
mankind  from  utterly  abhorring  it ;  so,  in  revealed  religion,  the  rationalism, 
which  was  felt  to  be  insufficient  for  any  one  practical  purpose  whatsoever,  either  in 
the  restraining  of  sin  or  the  gendering  of  holiness,  has  become  a  more  pretending 
intuitionalism.  Persons  who  believe  in  the  Scriptures  in  no  higher  sense  than 
they  believe  in  Homer,  Pythagoras,  or  Plato,  who  could  not  give  an  intelligible 
answer  to  the  question,  "What  think  ye  of  Christ?  whose  son  is  he?"  and  who 
know  not  so  much  as  what  the  Holy  Ghost  meaneth,  do  yet  decorate  their  pages 
with  constant  references  to  faith,  to  spiritual  life,  and  the  religious  consciousness. 

It  would  carry  us  too  far  away  from  our  present  purpose  to  trace  the  history  of 
this  system  ;  nor  do  we  think  it  needful  carefully  to  allot  to  each  supporter  his 
share  of  the  heterogeneous  materials  which  have  been  collected  to  build  the  fabric. 
Certain  principles  laid  down  by  Kant — principles  which  we  regard  as  false  in  them- 
selves (see  Appendix  vi.) — were  being  followed  out  in  Germany  to  their  legitimate 
consequences,  and  producing  a  very  pretending  form  of  universal  scepticism, 
when  Jacobi  rushed  in  to  protect  philosophy  by  setting  up  Feeling  (Gefuehl)  as  a 
counterpart  principle  to  the  Understanding.  Schleiermacher  carried  a  similar 
principle  into  theology,  and  sought  to  construct  a  religion  out  of  feeling  or  con- 
sciousness.    This  scheme  has  been  adopted  by  De  Wette,  and  even,  we  regret  to 


508  ILLUSTRATIVE  NOTE. 

say,  to  some  extent  by  Neander  and  other  eminent  divines,  who  have  of  late  years 
been  defending  their  system  against  another  supported  by  the  follower!  of  Hegel, 
which  professes  to  be  more  rational  and  logical.  In  doing  so,  it  should  be  ac- 
knowledged that  they  have  furnished  very  able  defences  and  beautiful  exhibi- 
tions of  some  of  the  essential  truths  of  Christianity.  But,  as  the  practical  result 
of  the  whole,  the  scepticism  which  began  with  the  universities  and  the  clergy  has 
now  gone  down  to  the  common  people,  and  has  assumed,  at  least  in  the  cities,  a 
form  sufficiently  vulgar  and  offensive  ;  and  the  followers  of  Schleierniacher  find 
that  they  have  no  power  to  allay  the  spirit  which  has  been  called  up,  for  the 
dreamy  intuitions  of  the  divines  are  felt  to  be  as  incapable  of  being  grasped  by 
the  practical  understanding  of  the  common  people,  as  they  are  acknowledged  to 
be  incapable  of  being  apprehended  by  the  logical  understanding  of  the  philoso- 
phers. Yet  this  is  the  system  which  is  being  imported  into  our  country  by  certain 
clergymen  of  the  Anglican  Establishment  and  Congregational  ministers  in 
England.  In  particular,  Mr.  Morell,  after  mixing  with  it  a  farther  medley  from 
the  eclectic  philosophy  of  Cousin,  is  seeking  to  recommend  it  to  the  British  public. 
Our  limits  do  not  admit  of  our  exposing  its  errors,  but  we  are  tempted  to  point 
out  the  fallacies  to  be  found  in  some  of  its  principles. 

1st,  We  insist  that  no  intuition  be  admitted  in  philosophic  or  religious  specula- 
tion, till  it  is  proved  by  induction  to  be  in  the  constitution  of  the  mind — nay,  till 
its  nature  and  rule  be  pointed  out.  Crede  lit  intelligas  was  the  maxim  of  Anselm, 
and  the  counterpart  maxim  of  Abelard,  intelUge  id  credos.  Both  maxims  are  true, 
and  the  one  limits  the  other.  We  acknowledge  that  there  are  intuitions  in  the 
human  mind,  and  that,  without  them,  the  understanding,  having  no  basis,  could 
erect  no  superstructure.  The  whole  would  be  like  multiplying  nothing  by  no- 
thing— the  result  would  still  be  nothing.  But  then  we  are  not  entitled  in  any 
speculation  to  proceed  on  an  alleged  intuition,  till  it  has  been  shown  to  be  an 
intuition.  Nor  can  an  appeal  on  this  subject  be  made  to  the  consciousness,  for  we 
are  not  immediately  conscious  of  an  intuition.  We  can  be  conscious  only  of  the 
working  of  an  intuition,  and  he  who  would  determine  what  the  intuition  is,  must 
by  induction  ascertain  its  law.  The  intuition,  it  is  true,  acts  spontaneously  in 
the  mind,  whether  we  observe  it  or  not — nay,  it  must  first  act  before  we  can 
observe  it ;  but  then,  the  previous  observation  is  necessary,  in  order  to  our 
assuming  this  intuition  in  philosophic  investigation.  The  intuitions  act  according 
to  fixed  principles,  and  these  are  the  true  principles  of  metaphysical  philosophy ; 
but  we  are  not  directly  cognizant  of  them  as  general  principles,  and  we  cannot 
use  them  in  science,  till  we  have  specified  their  precise  nature.  By  no  process 
of  induction  can  we  demonstrate  the  truth  of  fundamental  principles,  but  it  is 
only  by  a  process  of  induction  that  we  can  find  out  what  they  are,  and  make  a 
scientific  use  of  them.*  If  we  neglect  to  do  so,  we  may  find  ourselves  starting 
with  error,  and  so  can  never  arrive  at  truth,  and  the  mind  would  ever  have  to 

*  TVe  are  prepared  to  defend  the  following  propositions  in  re.-ard  to  innate  ideas  or  con-iitutional 
principles  of  the  mind: — I.  Negatively,  that  there  are  no  innate  ideas  in  the  mind,  (L)  as  images  or 
mental  representations;  nor,  (2.)  as  abstract  or  general  notions ;  nor,  (3.)  as  principles  of  thought, 
belief,  or  action,  before  the  consciousness,  as  principles.  But  II.  Positively,  [X.J  that  there  are  con- 
stitutional principles  operating  in  the  mind,  though  not  before  the  consciousness,  as  general  principles; 
(2.  that  these  come  forth  into  consciousness  as  individual  mot  general)  cognitions  or  judgments  ;  and, 
(3.1  that  these  individual  exercises,  when  carefully  inducted — but  only  when  so — give  us  primitive  or 
philosophic  truths.  It  follows  that,  while  thtse  native  principles  operate  in  the  mind  spontaneously, 
we  are  entitled  to  use  them  reflexly,  in  philosophic  or  theologic  speculation,  only  after  having 
determined  their  nature  by  abstraction  and  generalisation.  (See  Illustrative  Note  E,  pp.  289-2B1, 
and  Appendix  vi.) 


THE  GERMAN  INTUITIONAL  THEOLOGY.  509 

unweave  its  own  web.  Nay,  this  latter  error  may  just  as  readily  conduct  to 
scepticism  as  the  former ;  for  (to  borrow  an  illustration  applied  to  reasoning  in 
Plato's  Phaedo,  \  89)  as  the  individual  who  has  trusted  every  man  that  professes 
to  be  his  friend,  comes  at  last  to  be  utterly  sceptical  of  the  existence  of  friendship, 
so  the  person  who  sets  out  with  believing  every  supposed  natural  intuition,  may 
speedily  arrive  at  a  universal  infidelity.  For  ourselves,  we  are  exceedingly  sus- 
picious of  some  of  those  intuitions  on  which  the  theologians  of  Germany  would 
rear  such  a  superstructure,  such  as  faith  in  God,  consciousness  of  God,  the  know- 
ledge of  the  infinite  and  absolute,  the  gazing  upon  truth  as  a  whole,  the  perception 
of  abstract  beauty  and  holiness,  and  the  religious  life  or  consciousness.  We 
would  like  to  see  them  thoroughly  sifted  and  tested,  in  the  sense  in  which  we 
have  explained,  by  human  intelligence,  while  we  would  like  to  see  such  an  ac- 
knowledged intuition  and  faculty  as  the  conscience  followed  out  to  its  legitimate 
consequences  by  the  learning  and  penetration  of  a  German  philosopher.* 

2dly,  We  maintain  that  revelation  addresses  itself  to  the  other  qualities  of  the 
mind  as  well  as  the  intuitions  or  intuitional  consciousness.  We  have  our  doubts 
of  the  propriety  of  arranging,  in  a  general  way,  all  the  higher  faculties  of  the 
mind,  into  the  logical  understanding  and  the  intuitional  consciousness.  What  is 
made  of  the  conscience  on  such  a  system — what  of  the  will — what  of  the  emotions? 
Religion,  as  a  practical  matter,  is  not  addressed  exclusively  either  to  the  logical 
understanding  or  the  intuitions.  Just  as  any  one  of  them,  or  the  two  combined, 
cannot  make  any  man  a  faithful  father  or  an  obedient  son,  a  just  sovereign  or  a 
righteous  judge,  so  they  are  incapable  of  turning  the  sinner  into  a  good  Christian. 
The  Christian  religion  addresses  itself  to  the  whole  soul,  providing  evidence  and 
facts  for  the  understanding,  and  truth  which  shines  in  its  own  light  to  the  reason ; 
holding  forth  a  perfect  law  and  a  perfect  righteousness  to  the  moral  faculty ; 
excellence  to  gain  the  will  and  loveliness  to  draw  the  affections  ;  exhibiting  these 
now  separate  and  scattered  in  individual  persons,  incidents  and  propositions,  and 
again  displaying  them  all  in  unity  in  the  character  of  God  and  Christ.  As  each 
of  these  faculties  is  addressed,  so  each  has  its  part  to  perform;  the  understanding 
apprehending  the  facts,  examining  the  evidence,  and  defending  the  truth ;  the 
reason  sanctioning  and  adopting  the  truth  when  presented ;  the  conscience  bring- 
ing the  sinner  to  the  knowledge  of  sin,  and  approving  of  the  righteousness  of 
Christ ;  the  will  accepting  of  God  as  the  perfect  good  ;  and  the  affections  flowing 
forth  towards  God  and  all  mankind,  and  enlivening  the  soul  as  they  flow.  We 
deny  that  religion  has  its  seat  among  the  mere  intuitions.  It  spreads  itself  over 
the  soul,  and  every  faculty  and  feeling  has  a  work  to  perform. 

odly,  It  is  a  Divine  appointment,  that  the  objective  truth  presented  in  the  Word 
should  be  the  means  of  rectifying  the  whole  soul.  There  is, truth  presented  to  all 
and  each  of  the  faculties,  that  all  and  each  of  the  faculties  may  be  rectified.  There 
are  persons  who  complain  of  the  Word,  because  it  is  not  addressed  to  some  one 
department  of  the  human  soul,  on  which  they  set  a  high  value.  The  systematic 
divine  wonders  that  it  is  not  a  mere  scheme  of  dogmatic  theology,  forgetting  that 
in  such  a  case  it  would  address  itself  exclusively  to  the  understanding.  The 
German  speculatists,  on  the  other  hand,  complain  that  it  is  not  a  mere  exhibition 
of  the  pure  ideas  of  the  true  and  the  good,  forgetting  that  in  such  a  case  it  would 
have  little  or  no  influence  on  the  more  practical  faculties.  Others  seem  to  regret 
that  it  is  not  a  mere  code  of  morality,  -while  a  fourth  class  would  wish  it  to  be 
altogether  an  appeal  to  the  feelings.     15ut  the  Word  is  inspired  by  the  same  God 

*  The  real  intuitions  of  the  human  soul  are  just  the  human  faculties  and  feelings  acting  according 
to  their  fundamental  principles.     (See  Apnhjdix  vi.J 


510  ILLUSTRATIVE  NOTE. 

who  formed  man  at  first,  and  who  knows  what  is  in  man  ;  and  he  would  rectify 
not  merely  the  understanding  or  intuitions,  not  merely  the  conscience  or  affections, 
but  the  whole  man  after  the  image  of  God.  It  is  the  enlarged  and  comprehensive 
character  of  the  Word  which  makes  narrow  minds  complain  of  it.  Its  variety  is 
as  great  as  that  of  the  faculties  and  feelings,  which  it  would  restore  to  their 
primitive  state  and  proper  exercise. 

4thh/,  There  are  in  the  human  mind  capacities  to  apprehend  the  truth  presented 
in  the  Word.  "  There  is  a  light  which  lighteth  every  man  which  cometh  into  the 
world,"  (John  i.  9,)  and  this  light  we  are  assured  comes  from  the  Eternal  Logos. 
What  the  nature  of  that  light  is,  we  seem  to  be  told  in  Rom.  i.  20,  and  ii.  14,  15. 
It  is  partly  external,  being  the  light  which  shines  from  the  works  of  God,  and 
partly  internal,  that  which  is  reflected  from  the  moral  constitution  of  man.  What 
we  need  in  the  present  day  in  systematic  theology,  is  a  scientific  exposition  of 
these  two  elements.  Until  they  are  unfolded  in  an  inductive  manner,  we  have  no 
right  to  use  them  in  the  construction  of  any  system,  Christian  or  anti- Christian. 
For  if  Schleiermacher  appeals  to  feeling,  so  also  do  Rousseau,  Emerson,  and  F. 
Newman,  and  in  order  to  determine  which  is  making  the  legitimate  use  of  feeling, 
we  must  inquire,  in  the  manner  of  Lord  Bacon,  what  feeling  is,  and  what  feeling 
says.  Physical  science  is  unfolding,  in  this  way,  the  external  facts,  and  mental 
science  should  bring  out  in  the  same  manner  the  internal  intuitions.  This 
treatise  may  be  regarded  as  a  proffered  contribution  towards  such  a  construction 
of  the  elements  of  natural  religion.  The  internal  capacities  and  principles  at  the 
basis  of  them,  constitute  the  natural  subjective  of  which  some  make  so  much. 
These,  if  inductively  unfolded,  will  of  themselves  shew  that  they  do  not  render 
supernatural  truth  unnecessary,  nay,  one  of  their  deepest  utterances  is  a  cry  for 
something  which  they  cannot  furnish,  but  which  is  supplied  in  the  Word  of  God. 
For  while  there  is  light  in  the  world,  it  is  light  which  "  shineth  in  darkness,  and 
the  darkness  comprehended  it  not."     (John  i.  5.) 

bthhj,  Along  with  the  objective  Word,  there  is  a  Divine  power  applying  it 
internally,  not  merely  to  the  intuitions,  but  to  the  whole  faculties  of  the  soul. 
This  Divine  power  does  not  act  independently  of  the  objective  truth  presented  in 
the  Word,  but  acts  by  means  of  the  truth,  and  thus  deals  with  man  as  an  intelli- 
gent and  free  agent.  It  is  by  the  double  influence  of  the  objective  truth  and  the 
subjective  operation  of  the  Spirit  of  God,  that  the  religious  life  or  consciousness  is 
awakened  within. 

&tMy,  It  appears  evident  to  us  that  the  truth  presented  in  the  Word  must,  in 
order  to  rectify  the  faculties  and  feelings,  be  pure  truth,  without  any  admixture  of 
error.  A  corrupted  truth  presented  to  a  corrupted  mind  would  be  a  new  element 
of  confusion  and  derangement  thrown  into  the  already  bewildered  mind.  Were  the 
mind  not  perverted,  it  would  not  need  such  truth  to  rectify  it,  but,  being  perverted, 
it  requires  truth  to  set  it  right ;  but  should  the  revelation  made  to  it  be  mixed 
truth  and  error,  it  could  not,  because  it  is  perverted,  separate  the  one  from  the 
other.  "  The  harmony  of  our  nature,"  says  Mr.  Morell,  "  has  been  disturbed, 
and  with  it  the  power  of  intuition  is  at  once  diminished  and  rendered  uncertain."* 
The  same  author,  following  his  German  masters,  lets  us  know,  that  the  Bible  is 
mistaken  as  to  its  historical  and  scientific  facts,  incorrect  in  its  language  as 
expressing  the  truth  meant  to  be  conveyed,  erroneous  in  doctrine,  not  unfrequently 
wrong  in  its  morality,  and  illogical  in  its  reasoning.  Every  one  must  see  that  a 
word  so  defective  is  not  fitted  to  restore  the  disturbed  harmony  of  the  soul,  or  to 
give  certainty  to  the  intuitions,  but  would  rather  tend  to  increase  the  distraction 

*  Philosophy  of  Religion,  p.  59. 


THE  GERMAN  INTUITIONAL  THEOLOGY.  511 

and  the  painful  uncertainty.  The  soul  which  has  lost  its  proper  movement  needs 
a  pure  standard  to  rectify  it,  just  as  a  disordered  timepiece  needs  a  dial.  Had  the 
Word  come  to  the  soul  as  a  mixture  of  truth  and  error,  it  would  only  have 
thickened  the  doubts  of  the  anxious  and  inquiring  spirit.  In  such  a  case  no  one 
could  have  been  sure,  in  any  given  passage,  whether  it  was  the  God  of  truth  that 
was  speaking,  or  merely  Paul  or  John,  or  whether  Paul  or  John  had  or  had  not 
committed  a  mistake.  Nor  could  the  mind,  as  yet  perverted  and  disorganized,  be 
expected  to  distinguish  between  the  truth  and  the  falsehood,  and  it  would  be 
constantly  fixing  on  the  falsehood  as  truth,  and  on  the  truth  as  falsehood.  We 
cannot  be  grateful  enough  to  God,  who  hath  not  left  man  to  wander  in  an  abyss 
of  darkness,  where  he  cannot  get  truth  without  error,  and  yet  has  no  light  to 
enable  him  to  distinguish  the  one  from  the  other. 

7thly,  They  are  putting  that  which  is  first  last,  and  that  which  is  last  first,  who 
seek  first  a  religious  life,  and  then  imagine  that  mankind  are  to  devise  a  religion 
for  themselves  by  means  of  that  religious  life.  For  how  are  we  to  get  the  religious 
life  but  by  means  of  the  truth  ?  The  divines  of  the  school  referred  to  are  speaking 
perpetually  about  the  importance  of  the  religious  life  :  but  they  do  not  tell  us  dis- 
tinctly how  the  sinner  naturally  without  it  may  be  made  to  attain  it.*  Now,  wTe 
set  as  high  a  value  as  they  do  on  a  religious  life  :  we  acknowledge  that  without  it 
there  can  be  no  acceptable  worship  or  service,  no  true  enjoyment  of  God  or  of  the 
pleasures  of  religion.  It  is  because  we  set  so  high  a  value  upon  the  religious  life, 
that  we  set  so  high  a  value  on  the  inspired  Word,  as  the  means  of  awakening  it. 
There  is  first  the  truth  recommended  by  evidence,  apprehended  in  some  measure 
by  the  mind,  and  pressed  upon  the  acceptance  of  the  soul ;  and  then,  there  is  the 
truth  acknowledged  and  received  in  faith,  through  the  subjective  operation  of  the 
Spirit  of  God;  there  is  all  this  as  preliminary  to  the  religious  consciousness. 
The  religious  consciousness  thus  produced  consists  of  a  many-coloured  robe  of 
righteousness,  clothing  and  adorning  the  whole  soul.  Nor  do  we  regard  ourselves 
as  guilty  of  any  real  or  even  apparent  contradiction  when  we  add,  that  it  is  by 
means  of  the  spiritual  life  awakened  within,  that  the  believer  rises  to  a  full  com- 
prehension and  enjoyment  of  the  truth  which  first  awakened  that  life. 

But,  Sth'i/,  We  cannot  admit  that  the  religious  life,  even  when  produced,  has 
any  right  to  sit  in  judgment  upon  the  Word.  For  how  do  we  obtain  the  religious 
life  but  by  the  truth  ?  Nor  does  it  seem  possible  to  attain  a  true  spiritual  life  but 
by  a  scheme  of  pure  truth,  bringing  with  it  certainty  and  assurance  to  the 
disordered  and  bewildered  mind.  That  truth  was  conveyed  to  the  early  Church 
by  the  Old  Testament  Scriptures,  and  by  the  inspired  teaching  of  the  Apostles,  or 
of  persons  instructed  by  them,  and  in  after  ages  it  is  conveyed  by  means  of  the 
completed  Scriptures.  That  Word  comes  to  us  as  the  truth  of  God,  and  when 
accepted  it  assures  the  mind,  and  succeeds  in  rectifying  it;  but  having  accepted  it 
as  the  truth  of  God,  we  are  not  at  liberty  to  treat  it  as  a  mixture  of  truth  and 
error.  We  are  now  to  obey  the  truth,  and  not  make  the  truth  obey  us.  As  the 
mind  needs  pure  truth  presented  to  rectify  its  judgments,  so  it  cannot,  when 
rectified,  treat  that  truth  as  if  it  were  impure — accepting  what  it  pleases,  and  re- 
jecting the  rest,  according  to  what  it  believes  to  be  its  intuitions. 

Nor  is  it  to  be  forgotten  that  the  religious  life,  even  when  formed  in  the  soul, 
does  not  arrive  at  perfection  on  this  side  the  grave.  The  religious  life  needs  anew 
to  be  fed  and  strengthened  by  the  truth  which  at  first  quickened  it.     Not  even 

*  Mr.  Morell  seems  to  derive  the  religious  life  from  a  very  low  source.  "  Our  religious  life  we 
receive,  for  the  most  part  traditionally,  from  the  development  of  the  Christian  consciousness  in  the 
different  communities  which  now  compose  the  visible  Church."— (Phil,  of  Religion,  p.  199  l 


512  TEE  WORLD  TO  COME.       - 

those  who  are  in  possession  of  spiritual  life  are  in  a  state  to  set  that  life  above  the 
truth  which  has  gendered  it;  for  as  it  was  by  this  truth  that  the  religious  life  was 
first  produced,  so  it  is  by  the  same  truth  that  it  is  perfected.  Nor  are  they  at 
liberty  to  despise  the  letter,  in  a  pretended  attention  to  the  spirit.  Every  man 
who  acts  in  this  manner  will  at  times  be  putting  his  own  spirit  in  the  room  of  the 
Spirit  of  truth,  and  will  be  found  asserting  that  to  be  the  Spirit  of  the  Word  which 
is  merely  his  own  spirit. 

This  placing  of  the  intuitions  above  the  Word  is  in  some  respects  more  perilous 
than  the  setting  of  the  understanding  above  the  Word;  for,  when  the  understand- 
ing thus  presumes  to  act  as  the  arbiter  of  revealed  truth,  we  can  meet  it  on  its 
own  grounds.  Its  dogmas,  if  unsound,  are  at  least  clear  and  intelligibr  and  so 
can  be  met  and  refuted.  But  this  intuitional  theology  carries  us  into  .  region 
where  every  man's  own  spirit  creates  for  him  a  scheme,  which  cannot  be  so  much 
as  examined,  because  it  cannot  be  developed  in  a  clear  system,  or  put  in  such  a 
shape  as  to  admit  of  its  refutation.  In  these  circumstances  we  do  not  regret  to 
find,  that  God  seems  to  have  sent  among  the  builders  of  this  heaven-defying  tower 
such  a  spirit  of  confusion  and  variance,  that  no  two  of  them  can  speak  the  same 
language. 

We  have  a  deep  admiration  of  the  genius  and  learning  of  the  German  philoso- 
phers and  divines  ;  but  with  all  their  ability  and  scholarship,  they  will  never 
arrive  at  a  system  of  speculative  philosophy,  clear  and  consistent,  true  and  useful, 
progressive  and  permanent,  till  they  condescend  to  study  the  human  mind  in  an 
inductive  manner ;  nor  will  they  ever  develop  a  sound  system  of  theology,  till  they 
submit  to  sit  at  the  feet  of  Jesus,  and  receive  with  meekness  the  Word  from  him. 


SECT.  V. THE  WORLD  TO  COME. 

The  world  to  come,  of  which  we  speak,  may  be  understood, 
first,  as  the  future  earth  ;  and,  secondly,  as  the  state  of  man 
after  death. 

First,  the  future  earth.  The  past  and  the  present  point 
alike  to  the  future.  We  live  not  only  in  a  world  of  change — we 
live  in  a  world  of  progress.  There  has  been  a  gradual  and 
evidently  an  intended  advancement  in  the  physical  and  intel- 
lectual amelioration  of  the  race.  While  every  benevolent  mind 
must  rejoice  in  this,  it  is  just  to  regret  the  more  that  these  real 
improvements  are  incapable  of  renovating  man's  nature  morally 
or  spiritually.  The  improvements  of  which  we  boast  are  mere 
means  or  instruments,  which  may  be  used  for  good,  but  which 
are  also  employed  for  evil.  The  electric  telegraph  will  employ 
its  lightning  velocity  in  the  service  of  sin,  just  as  readily  as  in 
the  service  of  God.  Painting  and  statuary  have  been  patronized, 
not  unfrequently,  by  the  most  selfish  and  profligate  of  men — 
such  as  the  Medici — and  have  been  corrupting  as  well  as  refining 


THE  WORLD  TO  COME.  513 

the  minds  of  their  votaries.  Music  must  ever  waft  the  spirit  of 
man  into  a  region  of  greater  loveliness  and  grandeur  than  the 
actual  world  ;  but  instead  of  lifting  it  to  heaven,  it  has  often 
transported  it  into  scenes  where  sin  is  rendered  the  more 
fascinating  by  the  dress  in  which  it  is  presented.  Architecture 
has  built  temples  to  God  ;  but  it  has  also  built  mansions,  in 
which  temptation  has  spread  its  allurements,  and  its  temples 
have  been  as  frequently  dedicated  to  superstition  as  to  the  true 
worship  of  God.  There  is  no  one  power  or  element  in  the  world 
capable  of  regenerating  it.  The  power  which  regenerates  the 
world,  like  that  which  regenerates  individual  sinners,  must 
descend  from  a  higher  region. 

Nay,  the  very  Church  of  God,  and  the  Word  of  God,  cannot 
of  themselves  regenerate  the  world.  They  are  inadequate  for  so 
great  a  work ;  because  they  cannot,  by  their  own  power,  change 
human  nature.  With  all  our  privileges,  we  feel  that  there  is 
still  something  wanting.  Our  very  acquisitions  impress  us  the 
more  with  our  still  remaining  deficiencies.  We  are  more  aston- 
ished at  the  crimes  coming  to  light  in  our  dav,  than  we  are  in 
reading  of  the  same  deeds  committed  in  any  previous  age.  The 
creature  is  still  groaning  ;  and  it  will  continue  to  do  so,  till,  ac- 
cording to  the  promise  of  the  Word,  the  Spirit  is  poured  out 
on  all  flesh. 

Not  that  we  are  on  this  account  to  despise  or  hate  our  world. 
We  are  rather  to  love  that  world  which  God  so  loved  as  to  give 
his  Son  to  suffer  and  to  die  for  it.  Whatever  the  gloomy  and 
disappointed  ma}*  say  to  the  contrary,  this  world  of  ours  is  a 
glorious  world  after  all.  It  is  glorious  in  the  displays  which 
it  gives  of  the  Divine  perfection  and  beneficence — glorious  in 
its  capacity,  and  the  instruments  ready  for  use.  Let  but  human 
nature,  as  the  root  of  bitterness,  be  regenerated  ;  and  then  all  its 
capabilities,  all  its  acquisitions  and  improvements,  will  be  devoted 
to  the  most  beneficent  purposes,  and  will  change  the  very  aspect 
of  the  world.  The  state  of  the  earth  depends  essentially  on  the 
character  of  its  principal  inhabitant:  and  when  the  character  of 
man  is  renovated,  the  state  of  our  world  will  be  renovated  also ; 
the  agencies,  at  present  conflicting,  will  become  conspiring  ;  that 
which  is  barren  will  become  fruitful ;  and  that  which  is  hurtful 
will  become  beneficent.  We  live  in  the  lively  expectation  of  a 
coming  era,  when  the  work  which  the  first  man  failed  to  accom- 

2K 


514  THE  WORLD  TO  COME. 

plish  will  be  performed  by  tbe  second  man,  which  is  Jesus 
Christ,  and  when  it  shall  be  sung,  "  How  excellent  is  thy  name 
in  all  the  earth  I" 

Secondly,  the  state  of  man  after  death.  The  idea  im- 
pressed on  man  by  natural  religion  is,  that  he  is  under  govern- 
ment. There  is  (1.)  a  law  prescribed  to  him ;  and  (2.)  a  God 
who  upholds  that  law  ;  then  (3.)  a  consciousness  of  having 
broken  that  law  ;  and  (4.)  a  fear  of  punishment  to  be  inflicted 
by  the  God  whom  he  has  offended.  These  four  great  truths 
of  natural  religion  point  to  a  fifth — that  there  is  to  be  a  final 
judgment.  Every  man  feels  as  if  he  had,  at  the  end  of  his 
earthly  career,  to  appear  before  his  Governor,  and  as  if  there  was 
to  be  a  reckoning  at  the  close  of  the  day  of  life.  The  time  and 
manner  of  the  judgment  are  unknown,  but  the  judgment  itself 
and  the  law  are  so  far  revealed.  There  is  a  feeling  of  this  kind 
— originating  in  deep  internal  principles,  and  strengthened  by 
the  observation  of  the  instances  of  retribution  in  the  providence 
of  God — haunting  mankind  all  throughout  their  life,  and  com- 
ing on  them,  impressively,  at  a  dying  hour. 

This  we  hold  to  be  the  grand  central  feeling  of  mankind,  in 
reference  to  the  world  to  come  ;  it  is  an  expectation,  or  rather 
an  apprehension,  of  a  day  of  reckoning.  Such  a  day  of  accounts 
evidently  implies  a  future  world  and  a  separate  state.  This, 
if  we  do  not  mistake,  is  by  far  the  strongest  argument  for  a 
future  life.  We  believe  it  to  be  the  one  which,  in  fact,  carries 
conviction  to  the  minds  of  men.  It  is  an  argument  which,  like 
that  in  behalf  of  the  existence  of  God,  looks  to  various  pheno- 
mena, internal  and  external,  but  these,  in  the  one  case  as  in  the 
other,  pointing  to  one  conclusion. 

Let  it  be  observed,  that  we  are  not  stating  the  argument  in 
the  common  form,  and  maintaining  that  there  is  injustice  in  this 
world,  which  must  be  rectified  in  the  next.  We  are  not  willing 
to  allow  that  any  one  has  a  right  to  complain  of  injustice. 
There  is  in  this  world  a  government  complete,  so  far  as  it  goes, 
but  not  consummated.  It  is  complete  in  this  sense,  that  it  is 
in  exact  adaptation  to  the  character  of  man  ;  but  the  character 
of  man  and  the  Divine  administration  in  its  reference  to  it,  alike 
point  to  an  ulterior  conclusion,  towards  which  all  things  tend. 
We  see  the  process  begun,  but  not  ended— the  progress,  but 
not  the  termination  ;  and  we  expect,  at  the  close  of  the  passage 


THE  WORLD  TO  COME.  515 

of  life,  to  find  a  throne  of  judgment  set,  and  an  impartial  j  udge 
seated  upon  it. 

This  is  the  argument  which,  whether  they  are  able  to  state  it 
Dr  no,  does  carry  conviction  to  the  minds  of  mankind,  and  makes 
the  belief  in  a  future  state  so  prevalent.  It  is  an  argument 
sufficient  to  make  man  feel  his  responsibility  ;  for  it  reveals  the 
law,  and  makes  known  the  judge.  We  doubt  much  whether 
there  be  any  other  in  favour  of  a  future  world,  which  can  stand 
a  sifting  examination,  when  viewed  as  an  independent  argument. 
Yet  when  we  have  found  such  a  firm  basis  in  the  government  of 
God,  other  considerations  worthy  of  being  weighed  come  under 
our  notice,  and  have  all  more  or  less  of  force.  There  is,  for 
instance,  the  consciousness  that  the  soul  is  not  the  body,  and 
may  not  die  with  the  body  ;  nay,  there  is  the  feeling  that  it  is  so 
far  independent  of  the  body,  that  as  it  remains  entire  in  the  midst 
of  the  struggles  of  bodily  dissolution,  so  it  may  remain  entire 
when  these  struggles  are  ended.  Socrates  expressed  this,  when, 
in  answer  to  the  inquiry  of  his  disciples,  as  to  what  they  were  to 
do  with  him  after  he  was  dead,  he  sportively  remarked,  "  Just 
as  you  please ;  if  only  you  can  catch  me,  and  I  do  not  escape 
you."*  Again,  there  is  the  shrinking  from  annihilation,  and  the 
strong  tendency  to  believe  in  immortality.  This  feeling  cannot 
arise  from  a  longing  after  a  continued  enjoyment  beyond  the 
grave,  for,  alas  !  the  anticipation  has  in  it  fully  as  much  of  fear 
,  as  of  hope.  It  seems  to  us  to  be  a  native  belief  springing  from 
principles  planted  in  our  minds  by  him  who  made  us.  Not 
perhaps  that  is  simple,  original,  or  unaccountable ;  a  number  of 
separate  intuitions  seem  to  conspire  to  produce  and  strengthen 
it,  and  chiefly  those  derived  from  the  sense  of  accountability, 
and  the  consciousness  of  spiritual  personality.  Still  it  may  be 
regarded  as  a  native  feeling,  and  looks  very  much  like  an  antici- 
pation which  guarantees  a  realization. 

These  arguments  seem  to  us  to  have  considerable  force,  which 
cannot  be  said  of  others  that  have  been  adduced.  There  is  pro- 
bably not  a  more  sublime  scene  out  of  Scripture  than  that  in 
which  Socrates  is  represented  as  conversing  with  his  disciples, 
on  the  day  of  his  death,  on  the  subject  of  the  immortality  of  the 
soul.  But  much  as  we  admire  the  conduct  of  Socrates  on  the 
occasion  referred  to,  we  are  doubtful  whether  all  the  arguments 

*  Plato"s  Phaedo,  147. 


516  THE  WORLD  TO  COME. 

employed  by  him  are  conclusive.  That  the  soul  existed  before 
it  came  into  the  body,  and  will  therefore  exist  after  it  leaves  the 
body ;  that  as  life  implies  death,  so  death  must  imply  life ; 
these  are  arguments  suited  to  the  dialectic  intellect  of  the  Greeks, 
but  scarcely  fitted  to  work  conviction  in  a  doubting  mind.  The 
Girondist  philosophers,  on  the  evening  before  their  execution, 
tried  hard  to  be  persuaded  by  them;  but  it  is  evident  that  there 
were  deep  anxieties  preying  on  their  minds,*  from  which  they 
could  have  been  relieved  only  by  turning  to  the  death  followed 
by  the  resurrection  of  One  infinitely  greater  than  Socrates. 

That  it  is  this  belief  in  a  coming  judgment  which  is  the 
deepest  natural  feeling,  is  evident  from  the  conceptions  enter- 
tained of  the  future  world  in  the  popular  superstitions.  The 
doctrine  of  the  transmigration  of  souls  appears  in  the  earliest 
superstitions  of  the  world,  and  has  been  entertained  in  all  later 
ages  by  the  most  widely-diffused  forms  of  heathenism.  Accord- 
ing to  it,  the  soul,  as  a  punishment,  passes  after  death  from  one 
animal  body  to  another.  The  Egyptians  placed  a  searching 
judgment-day,  conducted  by  Osiris,  on  the  foreground  of  all 
their  representations.  The  Greeks  had  a  Minos  and  Rhada- 
manthus  as  judges  in  the  region  of  the  dead,  and  placed  there 
the  stone  of  Sisyphus,  the  sieve-drawing  of  Danaides,  and  the 
wheel  of  Ixion.  The  other  world,  in  the  common  conceptions 
of  mankind,  has  been  the  place  of  Shades,  and  has  always  had  a 
Tartarus  as  well  as  an  Elysium. 

That  the  Governor  of  the  world  must  call  his  creatures  into 
judgment,  this  we  believe  to  be  a  natural  sentiment ;  but  all 
beyond  this,  in  relation  to  tke  state  of  the  other  world,  comes 
from  perverted  tradition,  from  the  fables  of  the  priesthood,  or  the 
dreams  of  the  wayward  spirit  of  man — always  excepting  what 
comes  from  revelation. 

Here  again  we  find  that  revealed  religion  meets  the  felt  wants 
of  natural  religion.  When  revelation  draws  aside  the  veil  which 
separates  this  world  from  the  other,  we  see,  in  exact  accordance 
with  our  natural  convictions,  a  throne  of  judgment.  And  the 
Bible  gives  certainty  to  what  is  but  a  dim  anticipation ;  it  is 
Christ  that  brings  life  and  immortality  to  light.  He  does  more; 
he  shows  how  sinful  man  may  come  to  that  judgment-seat  to  be 
acquitted,  and  look  forward  to  it  without  fear.  The  whole  com- 
*  See  Lamartine's  Girondists,  vol.  iii. 


THE  "WORLD  TO  COME.  517 

plex  feeling  with  which  man  naturally  regards  the  world  to  come 
is  one  of  apprehension  rather  than  of  hope ;  it  is  a  world  of 
darkness  rather  than  of  light.  Nor  do  we  know  any  way  by 
which  these  fears  can  be  effectually  dispelled  but  by  the  rays 
which  the  Sun  of  Righteousness  sheds  on  the  darkness  of  death 
and  the  sepulchre. 

Natural  religion  has  been  described  by  one  party  as  a  mere 
negation,  or  a  mere  syllabus  of  wants.  By  another  party  it  has 
been  represented  as  furnishing  the  basis  to  revealed  religion. 
There  is  some  truth,  but  there  is  more  error,  in  each  of  these 
representations.  Natural  religion  is  not  a  mere  negation ;  it 
gives  a  God  and  a  government,  and  it  anticipates  a  future  day 
of  retribution.  We  do  not  assert  that  in  lands  enjoying  the 
light  of  Christianity,  the  idea  of  God  is  suggested  by  the  works 
of  nature ;  for  it  is  obvious  that  in  fact  it  is  called  forth  in  the 
minds  of  children  by  parents  or  guardians  who  appeal  to  God's 
word  as  well  as  his  works.  Nor  do  we  mean  to  affirm  that,  in 
order  to  a  rational  belief  in  the  Word  of  God,  it  is  necessary 
that  the  Christian  should  have  before  him  an  argument  in  be- 
half of  the  existence  and  the  government  of  God  formally 
drawn  out.  But  we  are  convinced  that  there  are  native  intui- 
tions in  the  mind,  and  palpable  order  and  adaptation  in  the 
world,  which  constrain  men  to  believe  in  a  God,  and  help  to  lead 
them  on  to  a  reasonable  belief  in  the  Word  as  a  revelation  of 
his  will ;  and  farther,  that  it  is  of  moment  to  have  certain  great 
truths  of  natural  religion  placed  on  a  stable  basis,  in  order 
thereby  to  have  a  ground-work  on  which  to  proceed  in  construct- 
ing a  systematic  defence  of  Christianity.  The  instincts  of  nature 
thus  prepare  us  to  believe  in  the  revelations  of  heaven  ;  and  a 
scientific  Natural  Theology  furnishes  certain  starting  principles 
to  Apologetic  Theology.  Thus  far  Natural  Religion  gives  some- 
thing positive.  But  then  all  its  positive  truths  only  remind 
man  more  impressively  of  what  he  needs.  Its  queries  are  far 
more  instructive  than  its  answers  to  them.  It  is  of  little  use  to 
any,  unless  it  lead  on  to  its  true  complement — to  that  sublime 
system  of  revelation  in  which  all  its  wants  are  met  and  satisfied. 

The  principal  office  of  natural  religion  should  be,  to  point  to 
Him  who  is  the  True  Light.  If  it  does  not  aim  to  accom- 
plish this  end,  if  it  comes  between  any  and  that  light,  it  may 


518  THE  WORLD  TO  COME. 

rather  bs  pernicious.  When  it  has  succeeded  in  this,  it  may 
then  disappear  with  its  proofs  and  processes,  and  allow  the  eye 
to  rest  immediately  on  God.  Such  a  treatise  as  this,  if  blessed 
from  above,  may  be  a  finger-post  to  direct  the  inquirer — pos- 
sibly the  wanderer — in  the  right  way,  but  when  it  has  fultilled 
this  office,  it  should  be  lost  sight  of,  as  he  goes  on  to  the 
experimental  knowledge  and  enjoyment  of  Him  who  alone  can 
enlighten  and  satisfy  the  soul. 


APPENDIX  ON  FUNDAMENTAL  PRINCIPLES. 


Art.  I.— LOGICAL  NATURE  OF  THE  THEISTIC  ARGUMENT. 

(Page  8  of  Text.) 

We  are  not  entitled  to  demand  of  every  one  who  believes  in  the  being  of  a  God, 
that  he  should  be  able  to  give  an  analysis  of  the  argument  which  has  convinced 
him.  Every  logician  is  prepared  to  acknowledge,  that  to  have  a  reason  for  our 
conviction  is  one  thing,  and  to  be  able  to  develop  it,  is  a  different  thing.  It  is 
by  a  spontaneous  process  that  the  mind  is  led  to  believe  in  the  existence  of  God ; 
to  state  the  argument  in  regular  form  is  the  business  of  natural  theology  as  a 
science.  When  unfolded,  the  argument  will  be  found  to  have  both  an  intuitive 
(law  of  intelligence)  and  an  observational  element.  There  is  the  one,  as  well  as  the 
other  of  these,  alike,  in  the  so-called  a  priori  and  a  posteriori  arguments.  In  the 
rational  (it  does  not  profess  to  be  a  priori)  demonstration  of  S.  Clarke,  there  is  a 
fact  assumed,  the  existence  of  space  and  time,  implying  the  existence  of  a  sub- 
stance of  which  they  are  modes  (?).  In  that  of  Descartes  there  is  also  a  fact 
assumed,  that  the  mind  has  the  idea  of  the  perfect,  implying,  it  is  argued,  (we  think 
inconclusively,)  the  existence  of  a  perfect  being.  Again,  in  the  a  posteriori  argu- 
ment, there  are  certain  mental  principles  assumed,  such  as  the  rftcessary  connexion 
of  cause  and  effect.  (This  is  shewn  by  Cousin,  CEuvres,  Deux  Ser.,  tome  iii.  Less, 
xxiv.,  &c.)  In  this  country,  natural  theology  has  been  chiefly  engaged  in  unfolding 
the  external  element,  and  has  given  a  beautiful  exhibition  of  the  adaptation  of  parts 
to  be  found  in  the  universe.  In  another  department  of  this  same  external  evidence 
less  has  been  done.  The  ancients  argued  the  existence  of  God,  not  only  from  the 
adaptation,  but  from  the  order  of  the  universe.  This  branch  of  proof  must  come 
once  more  into  prominence,  in  consequence  of  the  late  discoveries  in  natural  his- 
tory, in  regard  to  the  homologies  and  hoinotypes  found  in  the  vegetable  and  animal 
structures.  (See  pp.  120-126.)  The  argument  will  be  strengthened,  when  it  is 
*aken,  as  it  can  now  be,  from  Combined  Order  and  Adaptation.  (See  p.  158.) 
But  when  fully  unfolded,  the  argument  will  be  found  to  imply  certain  internal  prin- 
ciples. British  Natural  Theology  seldom  entered  upon  this  field  during  the  two  or 
three  past  ages.  Its  aim  was  to  give  satisfactory  external  proof,  that  there  exists 
an  Intelligent  Being  who  planned  the  universe,  and  in  this  it  has  succeeded.  But 
Natural  Theology  must  now  go  beyond  this.  It  must  defend  the  principle  of  intel- 
ligence, which  leads  us  to  argue  from  the  effects  in  the  world,  that  there  is  a  cause 
above  the  world.  It  must  do  more.  A  distinction  should  be  drawn  between  the 
evidence,  in  behalf  of  the  existence  of  a  Living  Intelligent  God,  and  that  in  behalf 
of  his  Infinity.  The  natural  theologians  of  Britain  have  been  anxious  chiefly  to 
establish  the  first  point — the  other  being  seldom  denied.    Hence  they  are  reproached 


520  appendix:  on  fundamental  principles. 

with  putting  more  in  the  conclusion  than  they  have  given  them  in  t  e  premi 
and  arguing  an  infinite  cause  from  a  finite  effect.  The  reproach  is  scarce/y  deserve  1 : 
for  all  that  thev  professed  to  do.  was  to  prove  the  existence  of  an  intelligent  being 
in  opposition  to  the  atheist.  Still  it  is  needful,  in  order  to  the  completion  of  the 
argument,  that  it  should  be  shewn  how  we  are  constrained  by  an  internal  principle 
to  look  upon  the  intelligent  God  as  infinite.  Metaphysical  philosophy  will  be  able, 
we  are  convinced,  to  supply  a  statement  and  defence,  both  of  the  principles  of 
Causation  (see  Art.  III.  and  IV.)  and  of  Infinity,  (see  Art.  VI.),  provided  it  pro- 
ceeds, not  in  an  a  priori  or  critical,  hut  in  an  inductive  manner,  to  examine  the 
intuitions  of  the  human  mind.  The  intuitions,  it  is  true,  are  in  the  mind  a  priori: 
but  their  precise  nature  and  value,  and  the  truths  guaranteed  by  them,  can  be 
determined  only  by  inductive  investigation. 

Since  the  publication  of  the  third  edition  of  this  work,  we  have  had  a  farther 
expansion  of  Sir  W.  Hamilton's  views,  by  the  publication  of  his  Discussions  on 
Philosophy.  The  principles  there  laid  down,  cut  up  by  the  roots  the  common 
theistic  arguments.  Comparing  his  philosophy  of  the  Conditioned  with  that  of  the 
Absolute,  as  evolved  in  Germany,  he  says,  "  In  one  respect  both  coincide,  for  both 
agree  that  the  knowledge  of  Nothing  is  the  principle  or  result  of  all  true  philosophy. 
Sea  .  — studium  quo  nos  laetamur  utrique.'  But  the  one  doctrine  maintain- 
ing that  the  Nothing  must  yield  everything,  is  a  philosophic  omniscience :  whereas 
the  other  holding  that  Nothing  can  yield  nothing,  is  a  philosophic  nescience.  In 
other  worJs,  the  doctrine  of  the  unconditioned  is  a  philosophy  confessing  relative 
ignorance,  but  professing  absolute  knowledge ;  while  the  doctrine  of  the  uncondi- 
tioned is  a  pai'osophy  professing  relative  knowledge,  but  confessing  absolute 
ignorance."  (p.  5S4.  1st  ed.)  Such  a  system  renders  it  impossible  to  construct 
an  argument  in  behalf  of  the  Divine  existence  by  means  of  man's  intelligence. 
Taking  up  the  same  position  as  Kant,  he  says — "  the  only  valid  argument  for  the 
existence  of  God  or  the  immortality  of  the  soul,  rests  on  the  grounds  of  mau's  moral 
nature."  (p.  595.)  We  are  most  unwilling  to  engage  in  an  argument  with  this  emi- 
nent man.  not  only  because  we  feel  ourselves  inferior  to  him  in  learning  and  logical 
power, — not  only  because  we  must  ever  feel  gratitude  to  him  for  the  indulgent 
word  spoken  in  behalf  of  this  treatise  when  published ;  but  mainly  because  of  the 
service  which  he  has  rendered  by  his  Appendix  to  Eeid,  which  we  reckon  the  most 
valuable  contribution  made  in  our  day  to  philosophy.  While  still  a  living  man, 
(and  long  may  he  be  a  living  man  among  us,)  he  is  acknowledged  by  all  who  are 
competent  to  judge,  to  have  taken  his  place  beside  Descartes  and  Kant,  and  those 
men  of  other  days  who  have  done  most  to  search  the  foundations  of  knowledge. 
But  with  these  views  as  to  human  nescience,  and  the  inconclusiveness  of  the  com- 
mon arguments  in  behalf  of  the  Divine  existence,  we  cannot  coincide  We  acknow- 
ledge that  it  is  one  good  consequence  of  his  philosophy,  that  it  shews  "  that  no 
difficulty  emerges  in  theology  which  had  not  previously  emerged  in  theology."' 
(p.  584 )  But  his  doctrine  of  relativity,  more  especially  in  its  application  to  cause  and 
effect,  really  leaves  us  nothing  by  which  to  prove  that  God  exists.  We  cannot 
see  how  even  the  moral  argument  remains,  if  "  good  and  evil "  are  subject,  as  they 
must  be,  to  the  same  all-sweeping  system  of  relativity  and  nescience.  It  will  be 
needful  then,  in  these  Articles,  to  utter  our  dissent  from  the  principles  laid  down 
in  the  Discussions. 

Sir  W.  Hamilton  (in  his  Discussions)  is  the  Kant  of  Scotland  and  of  the  nine- 
teenth century.  His  followers  now  form  a  considerable  school,  all  agreeing  in  this, 
that  man's  knowledge  is  simply  of  the  relative.  Those  of  them  who  have  carried 
their  speculations  into  theology,  feeling  that  human  intelligence  or  reason  cannot 


ON  THE  PROPERTIES  OF  MATTER.  521 

prove  the  existence  of  God,  seem  to  be  inclined  to  call  in  an  intuitive  faith  ir,  God, 
in  much  the  same  way  as  Schleiermacher  called  in  a  God  consciousness  to  save 
himself  from  the  nihilism  of  Kant,  (it  is  curious  to  observe  how  the  old  phases 
of  philosophy  return.)  This  seems  to  be  the  position  taken  up  by  the  gentleman, 
who,  of  late  years,  writes  the  metaphysical  articles  (characterized  by  a  fine,  though 
somewhat  winding  vein  of  reflection)  in  the  North  British  Review,  and  by  Mr. 
Calderwood,  in  his  spirited  work  on  the  Philosophy  of  the  Infinite.  But  this  faith  or 
consciousness  must  be  either  of  something  unconditioned,  in  which  case  it  is  incon- 
sistent with  the  theory  of  relativity,  or  it  must  be  of  something  relative,  conditioned, 
finite,  in  which  case  it  cannot  be  a  faith  in  an  infinite  God.  We  are  convinced 
that  the  common  arguments,  if  properly  unfolded,  are  valid,  and  that  all  the  dif- 
ficulties and  supposed  contradictions,  which  these  gentlemen  fear  so  much,  are  self- 
created,  and  spring  from  an  error  which  has  crept  somewhere  into  their  fundamental 
principle.  We  see  no  occasion  to  call  in  a  "  mysterious  faith"  to  assure  us  of  the 
existence  of  God ;  his  existence,  as  it  appears  to  us,  can  be  proven  by  obvious 
observations  of  facts,  aided  by  principles  implied  and  employed  in  the  common 
affairs  of  life,  and  acknowledged  in  all  metaphysical  systems.  There  is  wisdom  in 
the  statement  of  Leibnitz  :— "  Almost  all  the  means  which  have  been  employed  to 
prove  the  existence  of  God  are  good,  and  are  capable  of  serving  their  end,  if  only 
perfected." — Nouv.  Essais,  Liv.  IV.  c.  x. 


Art.  II.— ON  THE  PROPERTIES  OF  MATTER.— (Pages  77  and  97.) 

The  qualities  of  matter  are,  according  to  Locke,  of  three  sorts,  the  primary,  the 
secondary,  and  those  by  which  one  body  acts  upon  another.  (Essay,  B.  ii.  c.  8, 
§  8-10.)  In  the  text  we  have  treated  solely  of  the  third  of  these  classes.  Sir  W. 
Hamilton  has  also  a  three-fold  division.  There  are  the  primary,  which  are  all 
evolved  from  two  catholic  conditions  of  matter,  the  occupying  of  space  and  the 
being  contained  in  space.  There  are  the  secundo-primary,  which  have  a  relation  to 
space  and  motion  in  space,  are  all  contained  under  the  category  of  resistance  or 
pressure,  and  are  three  in  number,  co-attraction,  repulsion,  inertia.  There  are  the 
secondary,  which  belong  to  bodies  only  so  far  as  they  are  thought  to  be  capable  of 
specifically  determining  the  various  parts  of  our  nervous  apparatus.  (Appendix  to 
Reid,  Note  D.)  These  classifications  are  valuable  mainly  for  metaphysical  pur- 
poses, and  are  at  best  to  be  regarded  as  provisional.  Physical  science,  and  it  alone, 
can  settle  some  of  the  questions  started,  and  it  must  advance  several  stages  and 
tell  us  more  of  the  correlation  of  forces,  of  polar  action,  of  chemical  affinity,  of  heat, 
electricity,  and  colour,  before  we  can  have  anything  like  even  a  seemingly  adequate 
classification  of  the  properties  of  matter. 

All  these  arrangements  seem  to  us  defective  in  this  respect,  that  they  omit,  or  at 
least  do  not  explicitly  include,  power,  active  property,  force,  dynamical  energy.  It 
seems  clear  to  us,  that  we  cannot  know  material  objects — that  we  cannot  know  our 
own  organism  or  bodies  out  of  it  except  as  exercising  property,  that  is,  power.  Just 
as  we  know  matter  in  our  primary  cognitions  as  extended,  so  we  also  know  it  as  exer- 
cising property.  Active  property  then  is  entitled  to  be  placed  among  the  primary, 
or  at  least  among  the  secundo-primary  qualities  of  matter.  In  this  respect  physical 
science  is  far  in  advance  of  the  metaphysics  which  still  clings  to  the  doctrine  of 
Descartes,  and  represents  matter  as  altogether  passive,  and  its  single  fundamental 


522  APPENDIX  ON  FUNDAMENTAL  PRINCIPLES. 

quality  to  be  the  occupation  of  space.  The  later  disclosures  of  physics  clearly  prove 
that  matter  has  a  Ivvxpi;.  And  yet  the  dynamical  theory  of  matter  is  equally 
defective,  inasmuch  as  it  commonly  omits  the  occupation  of  space,  which  is  an 
equally  essential  attribute  of  matter,  and  inasmuch  as  it  confines  the  activity  of 
matter  to  force,  whereas  it  seems  to  possess  active  properties  of  various  kinds. 

In  the  midst  of  all  the  changes  of  material  objects,  there  are  two  things  that 
abide — the  substances  abide,  and  the  qualities  abide.  Allotropism  may  seem  an 
exception.  It  is  ascertained  that  two  bodies  possessing  the  same  chemical  com- 
position may  exhibit  very  different  properties.  Thus  common  phosphorus  is 
yellowish,  pliable,  soft,  can  hardly  be  handled  with  impunity,  and  assumes  a  par- 
ticular form  when  crystallized,  whereas  allotropic  phosphorus  is  almost  black, 
brittle,  and  hard,  can  be  handled  without  danger,  and  assumes  a  crystalline  form 
belonging  to  a  different  system.  We  are  evidently  not  yet  at  the  bottom  of  this 
subject.  It  is  a  more  striking  illustration  than  we  ever  had  before  of  the  fact,  that 
the  same  substances  may  exist  in  different  states,  and  that  all  properties  need  con- 
ditions to  call  them  forth.  We  do  not  know  in  respect  of  what,  the  bodies,  the  same 
in  chemical  composition,  differ  from  each  other,  whether  in  atomic  disposition  or 
difference  produced  by  heat  or  other  latent  energy.  But  that  the  substances  have 
not  been  transmuted,  is  evident  from  the  circumstance,  that  the  body  changed  from 
one  state  to  a  second  can  be  brought  back  from  the  second  to  the  first,  when  it 
'exhibits  the  very  same  properties  as  it  did  before  it  was  changed. 

For  metaphysical  purposes,  the  distinction  of  most  moment  is  between  our 
original  and  our  acquired  perceptions.  We  agree  with  Sir  W.  Hamilton  in  think- 
ing that  our  original  perceptions  are  probably  of  our  bodily  frame,  or  of  our 
organism  and  of  bodies  in  contact  with  it ;  all  beyond  this  seems  to  be  acquired. 
In  all  such  perceptions  there  must  be  knowledge ;  it  is  not  a  mere  apprehension, 
idea,  notion,  or  impression — none  of  these  words  express  the  mental  act,  but  it  is 
knowledge  ;  not  abstract  or  general  knowledge,  but  knowledge  of  individual  objects 
in  their  concrete  state.  In  the  very  perception  of  our  organism  we  must  know  our 
bodies  as  extended,  and  we  may  add,  as  exercising  active  power.  Our  acquired 
knowledge  proceeds  upon  this  original  knowledge,  and  becomes  the  knowledge  of 
linear  distance  and  of  various  kinds  of  active  property.  Now  it  appears  to  us,  that 
the  natural  realist  may  lay  down  the  principle  that  all  our  original  principles  are 
true,  that  is,  that  the  thing  corresponds  to  our  apprehension,  or  rather  knowledge  of 
it.  If  he  cannot  prove  this,  he-  may  at  least  defy  disproof,  and  affirm  that  our 
intuition  guarantees  the  reality.  In  adding  acquired  to  our  original  perceptions, 
we  lay  down  rules  derived  from  experience,  and  come  habitually  to  proceed  upon 
them.  These  rules  are  of  great  use,  and  lead  to  no  error  in  cases  similar  to  those 
from  which  they  were  derived,  but  may  land  us  in  mistakes  when  extended  to 
other  cases.  Thus  we  lay  down  the  rule  that  when  we  feel  ourselves  to  be  at  rest, 
and  an  image  of  an  object  moves  over  the  retina  of  the  eye,  this  object  is  in 
motion.  This  rule  is  correct  enough  while  we  are  on  land,  but  fails  us  when  we  are 
in  a  ship  moving  away  from  the  shore,  for  it  leads  us  to  think  that  the  shore  is 
moving.  If  these  views  be  correct,  it  is  wrong  to  say  that  the  senses  deceive  us, 
for  our  original  perceptions  do  not  deceive  us  ;  when  we  are  misled  it  is  by  an  im- 
proper application  of  rules  formed  by  ourselves  ;  and  it  is  interesting  to  notice,  that 
as  it  is  experience  which  has  led  us  to  form  the  rules,  so  experience  can  determine 
the  legitimate  use  and  limits  of  them. 

It  is  a  very  important  circumstance  that  the  later  discoveries  of  physical  science 
go  to  shew  that  our  senses,  that  is,  our  original  perceptions,  are  trustworthy.  Our 
senses  seem  to  say  that  there  is  a  reality  (they  do  not  say  what)  in  heat,  and  the 


RELATION  BETWEEN  CAUSE  AND  EFFECT.  523 

same  truth  is  now  acknowledged  in  physical  science,  which  affirms  that  the  heat 
which  came  from  the  sun  in  the  geological  sera  of  the  coal  measures,  was  absorbed 
by  the  plants,  and  is  actually  laid  up  in  store  in  the  coal-beds,  and  is  ready  to  come 
out  in  our  fires,  and  to  produce  or  to  constitute  mechanical  force.  The  main  difficulty 
of  natural  realism  arises  from  colour.  Idealism  has  ever  derived  its  chief  argument 
from  this  phenomenon.  In  ancient  times  it  argued  from  the  crooked  appearance  of 
a  stick  in  the  water ;  this  difficulty  is  obviated  by  modern  discovery,  which  shews 
that  direction  is  not  one  of  our  original  perceptions.  It  still  argues  that  the  eye 
adds  colour  which  is  not  in  the  object.  Yet  sureh/  in  all  this  it  is  arguing  from 
what  is  unknown,  as  if  it  were  known.  We  know  how  the  sensation  of  colour  is 
produced  in  us, — it  is  by  rays  reflected  from  the  object  and  falling  on  our  organism  ; 
but  we  know  not  what  makes  the  object  reflect  rays,  and  reflect  one  ray  rather  than 
another,  in  short,  we  know  not  what  colour  in  the  object  is.  "  Colour,"  says  Cousin, 
(Eeview  of  Locke,  Less,  xxiii.,)  "  is  perhaps  more  inherent  in  body  than  is  com- 
monly believed."  Speaking  of  this  subject,  the  highest  authority  in  our  country  on 
the  subject  of  colour  says,  "  It  may  perhaps  be  ultimately  found  that  nature  does 
not  play  the  fool  with  our  senses:  but  that  the  last  accomplishments  of  science 
coincide  with  common  apprehension."  (Field's  Chromatology,  p.  66.)  We  have 
shewn  (p.  129)  that  colours  are  apt  to  come  out  in  plants  complementary  to  each 
other.  There  must  be  a  physical  cause  of  this  general  fact.  May  it  not  be  that 
when  the  white  beam  falls  on  the  plant,  certain  of  the  rays  are  reflected,  whereas  the 
others  are  absorbed,  and  are  ready  to  come  out  on  certain  conditions  being  fulfilled, 
in  much  the  same  way  as  heat  was  absorbed  by  plants  in  the  geological  ages? 
Thus  when  the  white  beam  falls  on  the  purple  petals  of  a  flower,  the  purple  ray 
will  be  repelled  on  the  principle  of  like  repelling  like,  whereas  the  complementary 
yellow  will  be  absorbed,  and  will  come  out  in  the  yellow  heart.  This  hypothesis 
supposes  that  there  is  some  sort  of  reality  (we  do  not  say  what)  in  colour,  but  is  in 
no  way  inconsistent  with  the  Newtonian  theory,  for  it  regards  colour  as  discoverable 
by  us  only  by  means  of  the  reflexion  of  light — only  it  assumes  that  there  is  a  colour 
potency  in  the  object,  to  reflect  the  like  colour,  according  to  the  law  of  polar  forces, 
that  like  repels  like.  But  apart  from  this  altogether,  the  idealist  is  not  entitled  to 
urge  colour  in  defence  of  his  theory,  as  long  as  we  know  so  little  of  what  makes 
bodies  reflect  rays,  and  one  body  to  reflect  one  ray  and  another  body  a  different  ray. 


Art.  III.— RELATION  BETWEEN  CAUSE  AND  EFFECT  IN  THE 
PHYSICAL  WORLD.— (Page  81.) 

In  offering  some  remarks  on  this  subject,  we  are  anxious  that  it  should  be  under- 
stood that  we  are  speaking  solely  of  the  nature  of  the  relation  between  cause  and 
effect,  and  not  at  all  of  the  mental  principle  by  which  we  come  to  discover  that 
relation — of  the  objective  relation,  and  not  at  all  of  the  subjective  idea.  Many 
errors  have  arisen  from  confounding  these  two  things  ;  and  these  errors  appear 
again  and  again  in  the  speculations  of  those  who  have  derived  their  views  directly 
or  indirectly  from  the  great  German  metaphysician  Kant.  Upon  the  latter,  or  the 
internal  principle,  the  German  school  of  philosophy  has  thrown  some  light ;  but  we 
are  at  present  speaking  of  another  topic  wdiich  they  have  contrived  to  confuse — the 
real  relation  between  cause  and  effect  in  the  external  world. 


524  APPENDIX  ON  FUNDAMENTAL  PRINCIPLES. 

"  Every  effect  lias  a  cause,"  is  the  axiom  ;  but  the  words  cause  and  effect  are 
ambiguous,  particularly  the  word  effect.  The  aphorism  understood  in  one  sense  is 
a  mere  truism  or  identical  proposition,  and  may  mean  nothing  more  than  that 
every  "  effect,"  tbat  is,  every  phenomenon  which  has  a  phenomenon  before  it,  has  a 
phenomenon  before  it.  But  the  proposition  is  more  than  a  truism.  What  is  meant 
by  it  ?     What  is  the  exact  truth  set  forth? 

Dr.  T.  Brown,  following  out  and  connecting  the  speculations  of  Hume,  has  proven 
to  a  demonstration,  that  there  is  and  can  be  nothing  intermediate  between  cause 
and  effect.  He  has  shown  that  cause  and  effect  are  joined  as  the  links  of  a  chain, 
coming  into  immediate  contact,  and  with  nothing  between.  In  doing  so,  he  has 
cleared  away  much  cumbrous  and  confusing  error — but  has  he  established  and 
clearly  defined  the  positive  truth?  With  a  mind  of  unequalled  sharpness  of  edge, 
he  could  cut  into  parts  that  which  others  thought  to  be  indivisible ;  but  it  may  be 
doubted  whether  that  edge,  through  its  excessive  keenness,  was  not  sometimes  bent 
back  when  directed  to  certain  solid  matters,  which  require  to  be  inspected  and 
described  rather  than  to  be  divided  or  analyzed.* 

He  endeavours  to  prove  that  cause  and  effect  have  no  other  connexion  than  this 
— that  the  one  is  the  invariable  antecedent,  and  the  other  the  invariable  consequent. 
We  believe  that  no  one  disputes  the  existence  of  the  invariable  sequence  as  at  least 
one  element  in  the  relation.  But  it  is  not  so  universally  acknowledged  that  there  is 
nothing  else.  Most  persons,  unable,  as  they  acknowledge,  to  say  where  the  defici- 
ency lies,  have  felt  that  the  theory  is  bare  and  unsatisfactory  ;  and  that,  if  it  does 
not  miss  the  truth,  it  does  not  at  least  give  a  full  exhibition  of  it.  It  is  possible 
that,  in  the  theory  under  review,  Dr.  Brown  may  have  got  the  truth,  but  not  the 
whole  truth.  » 

When  we  assert  that  every  effect  has  a  cause,  so  far  as  we  do  not  play  upou 
words,  or  utter  a  mere  truism,  we  are  affirming  something  in  regard  to  existing 
things.  We  always  rejoice  to  bring  down  abstractions  to  actual  objects.  AVhen  we 
do  so,  we  feel  that  we  have  a  surer  footing  to  stand  on.  Let  us  come  to  existing 
things,  and  examine  them  with  the  view  of  determining  what  is  really  said  of  them, 
when  we  affirm  that  every  effect  has  a  cause. 

Do  we  mean  that  every  existing  thing  has  a  consequent,  and  every  existing  thing 
an  antecedent,  and  both  necessary,  to  use  the  old  phraseology,  or  invariable,  to  use 
that  of  Brown?  Does  it  mean  that  every  existing  thing  (A)  is  succeeded  by  an 
existing  thing  (B),  and  that  every  existing  thing  (B)  is  preceded  by  an  existing 
thing  (A),  and  that  this  existing  thing  (A)  will  always  be  followed  by  the  existing 
thing  (B),  and,  vice  versa,  that  this  given  existing  thing  (B)  has  always  the  same 
existing  thing  (A)  before  it?  We  doubt  much  if  the  mind  is  prepared  at  once  to 
admit  so  broad  an  axiom  as  this,  however  expressed.  Suppose  there  were  nothing 
in  the  universe  but  some  simple  unformed  substance,  such  as  a  piece  of  earth  or 
metal,  would  it  have  been  followed  by  something  else — or  could  we,  on  the  mere 
inspection  of  such  a  substance,  have  argued  that  there  must  have  been  something 
before  it  ?  Dr.  Brown  gives  a  clear,  and,  as  it  appears  to  us,  right  answer  to  this 
question,  when  he  says,  "that  matter,  as  an  unformed  mass  existing  without  rela- 
tion of  parts,  could  not  of  itself  have  suggested  the  notion  of  a  Creator,  since  in 
every  hypothesis  something  material  or  mental  must  have  existed  uncaused,  and 
mere  existence,  therefore,  is  not  necessarily  a  mark  of  previous  causation,  unless  we 
take  for  granted  an  infinite  series  of  causes."     (Phil,  of  Hum.  Mind,  Lect.  92.) 

*  The  language  of  Seneca  (De  Benef.,)  applied  to  Chrysippus  the  Stoic,  may  be  applied  to  Dr. 
Brown — "  Magnum  mehercule  virum,  sed  tamen  Graecum,  cujus  acumen  nimis  tenue  retunditur, 
ct  in  se  saepe  replicatur,  etiam  cum  agere  aliquid  pungit,  non  perforat." 


RELATION  BETWEEN  CAUSE  AND  EFFECT.         525 

"  Every  effect  has  a  cause,"  is  the  aphorism.  What  do  we  mean  by  an  effect? 
[f  we  analyze  it,  it  will  always  be  found  to  imply  a  change,  or  something  new.  Dr. 
Brown  admits  that  an  unformed  mass  could  not  of  itself  have  suggested  the  idea  of 
a  cause,  and  that  there  must  be  something  uncaused.  But  let  this  mass  be  seen 
springing  into  being,  or  let  it  be  seen  assuming  a  new  form,  and  the  idea  of  a  cause 
is  at  once  suggested.  We  must  limit  the  general  maxim  accordingly.  When  we 
say  that  every  effect  has  a  cause,  we  do  not  mean  that  every  existing  thing  has  an 
antecedent,  invariable  or  necessary.  There  is  something  new  implied  in  the  very 
conception  of  effect — it  is  something  effected,  something  which  did  not  exist  before 
or  put  in  a  new  state.  Whenever  such  a  phenomenon  is  brought  under  cognizance, 
the  mind  rises  intuitively  to  the  belief  in  a  cause. 

Having  endeavoured  to  limit  and  define  what  is  meant  by  an  effect,  let*  us  now 
attempt  to  determine  what  is  meant  by  a  cause. 

Looking  as  before  at  existing  things,  we  find  substances  with  their  several  pro- 
perties. Dr.  Brown  has  endeavoured  to  show  that  substance  is  nothing  but  "  the 
co-existence  of  certain  qualities."*  Into  this  speculation,  which  is  very  much  a 
verbal  one,  we  do  not  feel  ourselves  called  to  enter.  We  assume  the  existence  of 
substances,  material  and  spiritual,  possessing  their  several  properties,  or,  if  any  pre- 
fer the  statement,  composed  of  their  several  properties  cohering  together.  Now,  a 
cause  is  always  to  be  found  in  some  existing  thing,  or  in  a  substance  spiritual  or 
material,  simple  or  compound.  In  producing  its  effects,  that  substance  produces  a 
new  substance,  or  a  change  upon  some  existing  substance  ;  and  we  are  led  to  the 
conclusion  that  existing  things,  in  producing  new  existences,  or  changes  on  old 
existences,  act  according  to  certain  definite  rules,  which  it  is  the  business  of 
experience  to  discover.  The  same  existing  thing,  in  the  same  state,  is  always 
followed  by  the  same  change  in  that  existing  thing,  or  in  some  other  existing  thing. 
The  same  existing  substance  in  the  same  state  is  always  followed  by  the  same 
change,  and  vice  versa,  the  change  always  presupposes  the  same  pre-existing  sub- 
stance. 

When  we  discover  what  are  the  precise  changes  or  productions  resulting  from  a 
given  substance,  we  call  this  a  property  of  the  substance,  and  we  know  that  this 
substance  in  the  given  state  will  ever  produce  this  change  or  exercise  this  quality. 
It  is  the  office  of  observation  and  experience  to  discover  the  properties  of  objects. 

We  are  now  in  circumstances  to  define  more  accurately  the  ideas  contained  in  the 
words  cause  and  effect.  There  is  the  idea  of  universal  sequence,  bvt  there  is  some- 
thing more  definite.  Dr.  Brown  challenges  those  who  affirm  that  there  is  something 
more  than  invariable  antecedence  and  consequence,  to  say  what  it  is.  We  answer 
the  call,  and  affirm,  that  in  a  cause  there  is  a  suhstance  acting  according  to  its  powers 
or  properties.  Again,  in  every  effect  there  is  a  change  or  a  new  object.  We  are  far 
from  saying  that  Dr.  Brown  denies  what  we  now  state.  There  are  passages  in  his 
work  which  show  that  he  might  have  been  driven  to  admit  all  that  we  now  affirm  ; 
but  still  we  think  that  he  has  not  fully  brought  out  the  whole  truth.  Had  he  done 
so,  we  are  convinced  that  his  theory  would  have  recommended  itself  more  readily 
to  the  mind,  because  it  would  have  been  felt  to  accord  with  our  cherished  con- 
victions. 

Cousin  has  discovered  what  we  now  refer  to,  as  existing  in  the  causes  which 
reside  in  the  human  mind.  "  The  internal  principle  of  causation,  in  developing 
itself  in  its  acts,  retains  that  which  makes  it  the  principle,  and  the  cause,  and  is  not 
absorbed  in  its  effects."  f  But  he  has  not  observed  (because,  like  all  who  have 
become  involved  in  the  abstractions  of  Kant,  he  has  fixed  his  attention  too  much 
«  Note  C,  p.  498.  t  Ldfon  V.  (Cours,  182S.) 


526  APPENDIX  ON  FUNDAMENTAL  PRINCIPLES. 

on  the  subjective)  that  the  same  remark  is  true  of  material  substances  ;  and  that, 
in  producing  their  effects,  they  retain  the  property  which  they  exercised,  and  are 
ready  anew  to  produce  the  same  effects. 

Dr.  Brown  has  shown,  beyond  the  possibility  of  a  refutation,  that  in  the  produc- 
tion of  changes  there  is  truly  nothing  but  the  substances  that  change  and  are 
changed.  Mix  them  as  we  please,  "  the  substances  that  exist  in  a  train  of  pheno- 
mena are  still,  and  must  always  be,  the  whole  constituents  of  the  train."*  But  he 
has  not  shown  so  fully  as  he  might  how  much  is  implied  in  these  substances.  The 
German  metaphysicians  are  right  in  affirming  that  power  is  implied  in  our  very 
idea  of  substance ;  and  Dr.  Brown,  in  one  passage,  admits,  though  casually,  the 
same  thing  when  he  says,  "  All  this  regularity  of  succession  is  assumed  in  our  very 
notion  of  substance  as  existing."  f  These  philosophers  might  have  farther  affirmed, 
that  there  is  power  in  the  very  nature  of  a  substance  as  well  as  in  our  idea  of  it. 
This  power,  these  properties  of  substances,  are  permanently  in  them,  and  ready  to 
be  exercised  at  all  times.  With  the  exception  of  those  who  deny  the  existence  of 
an  external  world,  all  admit  that  properties  are  of  an  abiding  nature,  and  constantly 
resident  in  the  substance.  We  thus  arrive  at  a  power  in  nature,  constant  and  per- 
manent, and  ever  ready  to  be  exercised.  We  cannot,  perhaps,  speak  of  a  cause  as 
existing  when  not  exercised  ;  but  we  can  most  assuredly  speak  of  a  power  abiding, 
whether  exercised  or  not — that  power  abiding  in  every  substance  that  comes  under 
our  notice,  and  in  the  very  nature  of  the  substance  itself,  as  it  is  implied  in  the 
very  idea  of  substance. :f 

Taking  these  views  along  with  us,  we  free  ourselves  from  the  impression  left  in 
reading  such  a  work  as  that  of  Brown  on  Cause  and  Effect;  that  impression  being 
one  of  events  proceeding  in  pairs  or  couples,  the  latter  member  of  one  couple  form- 
ing the  first  member  of  the  next.  When  we  introduce  substance  and  qualities,  the 
idea  of  a  chain  is  now  got  rid  of,  with  all  its  offensive  and  misleading  associations, 
and  we  find  ourselves  instead,  in  the  heart  of  multiplied  harmonies,  requiring  a 
divine  skill  in  order  to  their  maintenance,  and  exhibiting  that  skill  in  every 
department  of  God*s  works. 

The  doctrine  now  expounded  is  fitted,  we  conceive,  to  clear  up  and  strengthen 
the  argument  in  behalf  of  the  existence  of  God.  The  axiom,  that  every  effect  lias  a 
cause,  stated  in  this  loose  form,  seems  to  involve  us  in  several  difficulties  in  regard 
to  the  Theistic  argument.  The  sceptic,  proceeding  upon  it,  would  shut  us  up  to 
the  alternative — of  affirming  that  every  existence  has  a  cause,  and  thence  he  would 
drive  us  to  the  conclusion,  that  God  himself  must  have  a  cause,  and  that  there  is 
an  infinite  succession  of  causes;  or  if  we  limit  our  assertion,  and  Bay  that  every 
existence  has  not  a  cause,  it  is  immediately  hinted  that  the  world  may  be  uncaused. 
Now  we  have  rid  ourselves  from  the  horns  of  this  dilemma,  by  the  view  which 
we  have  given  both  of  effect  and  of  cause.  An  "effect"  involves  something  new; 
there  is  change  implied  in  our  very  idea  of  it.  It  is  in  regard  to  such  a  phenome- 
non that  we  infer  that  it  must  have  a  cause — and  such,  every  one  admits,  are  all  the 
phenomena  in  the  world.     We  are  warranted,  then,  to  conclude,  in   regard  to  all 

*  Brown  on  Cause  and  Effect,  p.  29.  f  Ibid.  p.  143. 

X  Of  all  persons,  Dr.  Brown  should  be  the  readiest  to  grant  this,  as  he  supposes  that  substance 
is  the  mere  co-existence  of  qualities  ;  and  it  follows,  that  if  qualities  were  to  cease,  then  substance 
would  cease  also.  There  are  passages  in  which  he  seems  to  acknowledge  all  that  we  say  in  the 
text,  as  when  he  says,  "  that  subtances  abide,  and  qualities  abide;"  and  that  "qualities  are  just 
another  name  for  the  power  of  affecting  other  substances."  iP.  142  )  Yet,  in  direct  contradiction, 
he  affirms  (p.  176i,  "that  power  is  not  something  latent  that  exist6  whether  exerci-ed  or  not — 
there  is  strictly  no  power  that  is  not  exerted 


INTERNAL  PRINCIPLE  OF  CAUSATION.  527 

such  phenomena,  that  they  must  have  a  cause.  We  thence  rise  through  a  succes- 
sion of  causes  to  the  purpose  of  an  intelligent  Being.  We  are  lcquired  to  go  no 
farther,  according  to  the  explanation  of  cause  which  we  have  given.  All  power, 
we  have  seen,  resides  in  a  substance,  and  we  trace  all  the  instances  of  contrivance 
in  the  world  to  God,  as  a  suhstance.  We  now  rest  in  an  tint-hanging  spiritual 
Being,  capable  of  producing  all  the  effects  which  we  see  in  the  universe. 

But  to  return  to  the  subject  discussed  in  the  text,  we  find  in  the  examination  of 
material  causes  that  they  always  imply  two  or  more  distinct  bodies,  as  do  also  the 
effects.  There  is  an  inconceivable  amount  of  confusion  in  the  common  conceptions 
on  this  subject.  When  a  hammer  is  made  to  strike  a  stone  and  break  it,  the  cause 
is  not,  as  is  commonly  supposed,  the  stroke  of  the  hammer,  and  the  effect,  the 
fracture  of  the  stone.  The  cause,  properly  speaking,  consists  of  the  hammer  and 
stone  in  a  particular  state  and  relation,  and  the  effect,  the  hammer  and  stone  in 
another  state.  These  are  the  real  invariable,  antecedent,  and  consequent — the  cause 
tied  for  ever  to  its  effect.  The  cause  always  consists  of  a  plurality  of  substances 
in  a  certain  state,  and  the  effect  consists  of  the  same  substances  in  another  state. 
In  order  to  the  action,  or  rather  the  existence  of  a  cause,  these  substances  must 
be  in  a  certain  relation,  so  as  to  admit  of  the  operation  of  the  powers  or  qualities 
residing  in  them ;  and  it  is  only  when  they  exist  in  this  relation,  that  the  effect 
will  be  produced.  We  shall  slu>w  in  another  section  of  this  Appendix  ("VII. ),  how 
mental  causes  operate  differently  in  this  respect  from  material  causes,  in  that  the 
former  require  the  presence  of  only  one  substance,  the  one  indivisible  substance — 
mind  with  its  faculties ;  and  how  the  independent  and  self-acting  power  of  mind  is 
one  of  its  most  striking  properties,  and  that  by  which  if/is  pre-eminently  distinguished 
from  matter. 

Query. — Does  it  not  seem  as  if  some  of  the  laws  of  motion  were  but  partial  statements  of  more 
comprehensive  laws  ?  A  body  continues  in  the  state  in  which  it  is,  whether  of  motion  or  of  rest, 
for  ever,  unle-s  operated  upon  ab  extra.  Is  not  this  but  a  part  of  the  more  general  law,  that 
matter  is  inert,  in  regard  to  all  its  properties,  till  operated  upon  by  something  foreign  to  itself 

Is  not  the  second  law  of  motion,  that  of  action  being  equal  to  reaction,  just  a  larger  law  seen 
under  a  particular  aspect — this  second  larger  law  being  the  positive,  and  the  other,  before  consi- 
dered, the  negative  ?  In  order  to  the  production  of  any  effect,  chemical  as  well  as  mechanical, 
there  is  required  the  presence  of  two  or  more  substances  with  their  qualities,  and  in  the  production 
of  the  effects,  both  bodies  are  changed,  or  rather  the  effect  consists  in  the  change  made  on  the  two 
bodies.  That  body  which  changes  another  is  itself  changed,  and  that  which  is  itself  changed, 
changes  that  by  which  it  is  changed.  Not  only  so,  but  the  change  in  both  bodies  is  of  the  same 
description — [this  may  be  doubted]  ;— if  chemical  in  the  one,  it  is  chemical  in  the  other ;  if 
mechanical  in  the  one,  it  is  mechanical  in  the  other.  May  it  not  also  be,  that  the  change  in  the 
one  is  equal  to  the  change  in  the  other,  and  thus  the  law  of  action  and  reaction  may  be  ex- 
tended to  the  exercise  of  every  property  of  matter  ? 

If  so,  might  not  this  extensive  law  be  employed  to  explain  some  of  the  curious  phenomena  of 
chemical  equivalents,  and  of  the  polar  forces,  in  which  it  will  be  found  that  action  in  the  particles 
of  matter  is  always  opposed  by  an  equal  reaction.  The  more  we  reflect  on  the  subject,  we  are 
the  more  convinced  that  what  are  called  polar  forces  are  just  the  manifestation  of  the  reciprocal 
action  of  two  bodies  on  each  other. 


Art.  IV.-INTERNAL  PKINCIPLE  OF  CAUSATION.— (Page  113.) 

The  correspondence  traced  in  the  text,  proceeds  on  the  doctrine  that  the  belief  in 
the  relation  of  Cause  and  Effect  is  intuitive.  This  has  been  the  catholic  creed  of 
metaphysicians.     All  science  seems  ultimately  to  rest  on  first  truths  or  fundamental 


528  APPENDIX  ON  FUNDAMENTAL  PRINCIPLES. 

principles  not  derived  from  experience,  but  rather  laws  of  intelligence  enabling  ns  to 
gather  experience.  Among  these,  the  principle  of  causation  deserves  to  be  placed. 
It  bears  the  marks  of  intuitive  truth.  First,  it  is  necessary.  But  the  most  length- 
ened experience  cannot  give  this  necessity.  However  long  Sirius  may  have  pre- 
ceded the  heat  of  summer,  we  would  not  look  on  the  connexion  as  necessary, — we 
can  easily  conceive  the  two  to  be  severed.  But  we  cannot  be  made  to  believe  that 
there  is  an  effect  without  a  cause  ;  that  the  heat  would  come  without  a  power  to 
produce  it.  Mr.  J.  S.  Mill,  indeed,  tells  us,  (Logic,  B.  iii.  c.  xxi.  §  1.)  that  he 
can  "  find  no  difficulty  in  conceiving,  that  in  some  one  of  the  many  firmaments  into 
which  sidereal  astronomy  now  divides  the  universe,  events  may  succeed  one  another 
at  random  without  any  fixed  law.  Nor  can  any  thing  in  our  experience,  or  in  our 
mental  nature,  constitute  a  sufficient,  or  indeed  any  reason,  for  believing  that  this  is 
nowhere  the  case."  This  statement  about  fixed  laws  is  ambiguous.  If  by  fixed 
law  be  meant  simply  order,  and  uniformity  among  physical  events,  the  statement  is 
true.  But  if  meant  to  signify  an  event  without  a  cause,  material  or  mental,  natural 
or  supernatural,  the  statement  is  contradicted  by  our  "  mental  nature,"  which  impels 
us  to  seek  for  a  cause  of  every  event.  He  is  right  in  affirming  that  "  experience1' 
cannot  authorize  such  a  belief;  but  it  is  just  as  certain  that  our  "  mental  nature  " 
constrains  us  to  entertain  it — and  surely  if  there  be  laws  in  physical  nature,  there 
may  also  be  trustworthy  laws  in  our  mental  nature.  Mr.  Mill  has  improved  the 
account  given  by  Brown,  of  the  relation  between  cause  and  effect ;  he  says,  it  is  not 
enough  that  it  should  be  invariable,  it  must  be  unconditional.  We  accept  the 
phrase  ;  the  mind  looks  upon  the  relation  as  unconditional ;  and  when  it  notices  an 
effect,  looks  for  an  unconditional  cause.  Secondly,  the  belief  is  universal, — that  is, 
all  men  spontaneously  act  upon  it.  Mr.  Mill  tells  us  that  it  is  arrived  at  by  induc- 
tion, from  a  simple  enumeration  of  cases,  that  it  was  late  in  the  history  of  the  world 
before  it  was  established,  and  that  even  now  we  are  not  entitled  to  receive  it  "  as  a 
law  of  the  universe,  but  of  that  portion  of  it  only  which  is  within  the  range  of  our 
means  of  observation,  with  a  reasonable  degree  of  extension  to  adjacent  cases." 
(§  5.)  Now,  all  this  is  true  of  the  mere  order,  general  law,  or  uniformity  of  nature. 
Our  belief  in  it  is  simply  the  result  of  experience ;  it  was  long  before  men  enter- 
tained it,  and  we  should  be  prepared  to  acknowledge  that  there  may  be  exceptions, 
nay,  we  have  such  exceptions  attested  in  the  creation  of  new  species  of  animals,  and 
in  the  miracles  of  Scripture.  But  this  is  not  the  case  with  our  belief  in  the  rela- 
tion of  cause  and  effect ;  the  infant  acts  upon  it  as  well  as  the  mature  man,  the 
savage  as  confidently  as  the  civilized,  and  when  men  saw  no  natural,  they  called  in 
a  supernatural  cause  ;  and  even  now  we  call  in  the  fiat  of  God  to  account  for  the 
creation  of  new  species  of  organisms,  and  the  miracles  of  the  Word  of  God.  (See 
pp.  114,  156.) 

The  following  is  the  account  which  we  are  inclined  to  give  of  the  causal  judgment. 
We  cannot,  as  it  appears  to  us,  know  any  substance,  except  as  possessing  power. 
We  cannot,  for  example,  know  self,  except  as  active,  as  a  potency.  Nay,  we  cannot 
know  material  objects  except  as  active.  In  our  primitive  knowledge  of  our  bodily 
frames,  we  know  them  not  only  as  extended,  but  exercising  active  property.  (Sec 
Art.  II.)  A  considerable  amount  of  the  very  highest  authority  might  be  quoted  in 
behalf  of  the  doctrine,  that  power  is  implied  in  substance.  It  is  the  expressed  doc- 
trine of  Leibnitz,  who  says,  that  acting  force  is  "inherent  in  all  substance,  and  that 
this  is  true  of  substances  called  corporeal,  as  well  as  of  spiritual  substances.  (De 
primae  philosophise  emendatione  et  notione  substantias.)  Kant  admits  the  doctrine, 
without  being  able  to  follow  it  out.  "  AVhcre  there  is  Action,  consequently  activity 
and  force,  there  also  is  substance  ;  and  in  this  last  alone  must  the  seat  of  that  fruit- 


INTERNAL  PRINCIPLE  OF  CAUSATION.  529 

ful  source  of  phenomena  be  found."  (Analogies  and  Experience  in  Kritik,  Hay- 
wood's Translation,  p.  167.)  It  is  a  fundamental  principle  of  Ulrici,  a  living  Ger- 
man metaphysician.  (See  Das  Grundprincip  der  Philos.  und  System  der  Logik.) 
It  is  a  maxim  all  but  universally  acknowledged,  that  we  know  substances  by  their 
properties  ;  but  what  are  properties  but  particular  kinds  of  powers  ?  Power  being 
thus  one  element  in  our  primary  concrete  cognition  of  objects,  we  are  led  to  believe 
that  substances  operate,  and  that  all  operations  must  proceed  from  powers  in  a  sub- 
stance. We  have  in  Article  VI.  given  what  we  regard  as  the  correct  psychological 
genesis  of  some  of  the  more  important  intuitive  principles.  It  will  be  seen  from  the 
account  there  given,  that  we  regard  the  Simple  Cognitive  Faculties  as  cognizing 
Substance  and  Quality  in  the  concrete.  Proceeding  upon  this  knowledge,  we  have 
a  faculty  leading  us  upon  an  effect,  being  brought  under  our  notice  to  look  for  a 
cause,  and  vice  versa.  Substance  and  Property  are  given  primarily  in  simple  cog- 
nition, and  Cause  and  Effect  in  a  necessary  judgment  proceeding  on  this  cognition. 
Substance  and  Property  are  thus  the  groundwork  of  Causation,  both  in  themselves 
and  in  regard  to  our  apprehension  of  them. 

We  regard  Sir  W.  Hamilton's  representation  of  Causation  as  defective,  and  his 
resolution  of  it  into  a  wide  principle  of  relativity,  or  law  of  the  conditioned,  as  a 
failure.  "The  phasnomenon  is  this : — When  aware  of  a  new  appearance,  we  are  unable 
to  conceive  that  therein  has  originated  any  new  existence,  and  are  therefore  con- 
strained to  think  that  what  now  appears  under  a  new  form,  had  previously  an  exist- 
ence under  others."  (Discussions,  p.  585.)  With  all  deference,  this  is  not  the 
mental  phenomenon.  Our  appeal  lies  to  consciousness  ;  and  it  seems  to  us  to  inti- 
mate, that  on  a  new  fact  (not  appearance)  presenting  itself,  the  mind  seeks,  not 
necessarily  for  the  same  thing  or  existence  under  another  form,  but  for  some  thing 
or  substance  previously  existing  having  power  to  produce  the  effect.  It  may  find 
the  power  in  the  same  existence,  but  it  may  also  find  it  in  another  existence.  He 
tells  us,  "  that  when  an  object  is  given,  we  are  unable  to  think  it  non-existent — to 
think  it  away — to  annihilate  it  in  thought."  (P.  591.)  "  We  are  compelled  to  be- 
lieve that  the  object,  (that  is,  the  certain  quale  and  quantum  of  existence,)  whose 
phsenomenal  rise  into  existence  we  have  witnessed,  did  really  exist  prior  to  this  rise 
under  other  forms.  But  to  say  that  a  thing  previously  existed  under  different  forms, 
is  only  to  say  in  other  words  that  a  thing  had  causes."  (Pp.  593,  594.)  Carrying 
out  this  view  to  its  legitimate  consequences,  he  affirms,  "  We  think  the  causes  to 
contain  all  that  is  contained  in  the  effect ;  the  effect  to  contain  nothing  but  what  is 
contained  in  the  causes.  Each  is  the  sum  of  the  other."  (P.  585.)  There  is  surely 
an  oversight  here.  This  account  of  the  mental  thought  or  belief,  is  all  too  narrow 
and  inadequate.  We  acknowledge  that  as  an  empirical  observation,  we  ever  find 
new  material  forms  springing  out  of  the  same  existences  under  a  different  form. 
But  this  empirical  observation  is  not  the  intuitive  principle.  The  pantheistic  doc- 
trine, which  derives  existence  in  any  one  mode,  from  the  same  existence  in  another 
mode,  is  founded  on  the  exclusive  observation  of  material  phenomena,  and  does  not 
proceed  on  the  principles  of  reason  or  intuition.  Let  us  conceive  a  soul  springing 
into  existence.  Do  we  necessarily  look  upon  it  as  an  emanation,  and  derive  it  from 
the  same  existence  in  another  form  ?  What  we  seek,  if  we  interpret  our  conscious- 
ness aright,  is  power  to  produce  it,  and  this  we  may  find  in  quite  another  existence. 
We  can  also  conceive  of  the  creation  of  an  atom  or  a  world,  and  what  the  mind  de- 
mands is  not  an  evolution  of  the  one  or  other  out  of  the  same  existences,  but  of  a 
power  in  a  substance, — say  God,  to  produce  the  effect.  Holding  Sir  W.  Hamilton's 
lepresentation  of  the  mental  phenomenon  to  be  radically  defective,  we  reckon  hia 
resolution  of  it  into  the  law  of  relativity  as  unsatisfactory.     He  derives  it  not  from  a 

2  L 


530  APPENDIX  ON  FUNDAMENTAL  PRINCIPLES. 

" positive  power,"  but  a  "  negative  impotence,"  not  from  a  "  particular  force,"  but  a 
"general  imbecility."  (P.  594.)  No  wonder,  when  such  is  his  view  of  causation,  that 
he  cannot  derive  an  argument  in  behalf  of  the  Divine  existence  from  human  intelli- 
gence. The  very  differentia  of  causation  is  left  out  in  a  system  which  represents 
it  as  an  incapacity  to  conceive  that  observation  should  cease  when  we  have  traced 
effects  as  far  as  our  observation  can  reach ;  it  is  a  belief  that  there  is  a  something 
beyond  to  produce  the  effect  that  last  meets  our  view.  We  are  strongly  of  opinion, 
that  the  mental  principle  is  not  an  impotency,  but  a  potency,  not  an  inability  to 
conceive  that  absolutely  new  existences  should  spring  into  being,  but  a  necessary 
thought,  conviction,  or  belief,  that  should  they  arise,  they  must  have  proceeded  from 
an  existence — a  substance  with  power  to  produce  them.  This  is  with  us  an  in- 
tuitive principle,  constraining  belief  in  the  first  instance,  and  ever  confirmed  by  ex- 
perience. It  declares  that  when  the  effect  is  real,  the  cause  must  also  be  real,  and 
is  quite  sufficient  to  entitle  us  to  rise  from  the  effects  in  nature,  to  a  power  in  an 
existence  above  nature.  But  this  Being  above  nature,  bears  no  marks  of  being  an 
effect,  our  intuition  rests  satisfied,  and  goes  back  no  farther. 

We  can  thus  meet  the  objection  urged  with  great  logical  power  by  Kant.  (An- 
tinomies of  Pure  Keason  in  Kritik.)  "  Causality  of  the  cause  is  thus  ever  again 
something  that  happens  and  renders  necessary  your  regressus  to  a  still  higher  cause, 
consequently  ihe  prolongation  of  the  series  of  phenomena  a  parte  priori  unceas- 
ingly." In  enlarging  on  this  topic,  he  breaks  forth  into  a  passage  of  grim  eloquence. 
"  We  cannot  guard  against  the  thought,  yet,  also,  we  cannot  bear  it,  that  a  Being 
which  we  represent  to  ourselves  as  the  highest  among  all  possible,  should  say,  as  it 
were  to  itself, — '  I  am  from  Eternity  to  Eternity,  besides  me  there  is  nothing  except 
that  which  is  something  merely  by  my  will.'  '  But  whence  am  I  then?'  Here 
every  thing  sinks  away  under  us,  and  the  greatest  perfection,  like  the  smallest, 
floats  without  support  from  speculative  reason."  This  objection  derives  its  force 
from  an  erroneous  apprehension,  that  is  induction  of  causation.  Proceeding  not  in 
an  inductive,  but  a  critical  method,  Kant  has  landed  himself  in  contradictions,  and 
then  charges  the  contradictions  which  are  to  be  found  only  in  his  own  representa- 
tions upon  human  reason.*  He  says,  that  proceeding  on  the  principle  of  causation, 
there  must  be  a  regressus  ad  infinitum.  It  is  at  this  point  that  we  meet  him.  Wc 
hold  that  the  intuition  goes  back  to  a  substance  .in  which  power  resides,  but  that  on 
reaching  this  point  it  is  satisfied.  It  may  be  questioned,  indeed,  whether  that  sub- 
stance or  existence  is  not  also  an  effect.  If  it  be,  the  intuition  again  requires  us  to 
look  for  a  cause  in  a  power  dwelling  in  some  substance.  But  when  we  at  last  reach 
a  substance  which  bears  no  traces  of  being  an  effect,  we  may  stop,  for  the  mind  is 
satisfied.  Kant  himself  announces  truths,  which,  if  prosecuted,  might  have  led 
him  to  see  this.  He  allows,  as  we  have  seen,  that  power  implies  substance.  He 
farther  states  that  substance  and  quality,  unlike  other  categories,  does  not  require 
an  infinite  regressus.  When  we  have  found  a  power  in  the  Divine  Being  adequate 
to  produce  all  the  effects  which  we  see  in  the  universe,  the  regressus  ceases.  There 
is  no  contradiction  then  in  the  idea  of  a  First  Cause.  We  cannot  stop  till  we 
reach  such  a  cause,  or  to  use  the  old  nomenclature,  a  self-sufficient  power,  a  self- 
existent  Being,  or  better  still,  "  I  'am  that  I  am";  but  having  reached  this  point 
the  mind  feels  that  it  can  rest.  This  is  the  true  Absolute  which  the  German  spe- 
culatists  are  ever  seeking  and   never  finding.     Our  analysis   of  the  internal  prin- 

*  It  mi^ht  be  shewn  that  this  holds  true  of  all  the  Antinomies  of  Pure  Reason  adduced  by  Kant. 
The  contradiction  lies  in  the  representations  given  of  them,  and  not  in  the  principles  themselves  as 
they  exist  in  our  constitutions.  When  the  native  principles  are  carefully  inducted  and  expressed, 
the  contradiction  disappears. 


PRINCIPLES  OF  THE  INDUCTIVE  PHILOSOPHY.  531 

ciple,  thus  brings  us  to  the  same  conclusion  as  that  of  the  external  relation,  and 
leads  us  to  trace  up  all  the  activity  of  the  universe,  to  a  Being  who  has  Power  in 
Himself.     "  Twice  have  I  heard  this,  that  power  belongeth  unto  God." 


Art.  V.— THE  LIVING  WRITERS  WHO  TREAT  OF  THE  PRINCIPLES 
OF  THE  INDUCTIVE  PHILOSOPHY.— (Page  165.) 

(1.)  Sir  John  Herschel's  discourse  on  the  study  of  Natural  Philosophy  is  admir- 
able so  far  as  it  goes,  but  does  not  profess  to  discuss  the  philosophic  principles  of 
the  Inductive  Sciences. 

(2.)  We  like  the  phrase  by  which  M.  Comte  (see  pp.  4,  105,  165,  240)  designates 
his  work,  The  Positive  Philosophy,  and  every  one  is  constrained  to  admire  his  pene- 
trating intellect  and  his  clear  style.  He  professes  to  rear  a  philosophy  of  facts 
co-nrdiuated  apart  from  abstractions,  but  he  has  overlooked  a  most  important  class 
of  facts.  He  is  willing  to  attend  to  the  senses,  but  will  not  pay  any  regard  to  the 
consciousness ;  he  assumes  the  existence  of  matter,  but  denies  the  existence  of 
mind,  except  as  a  physiological  process.  He  is  the  embodiment  of  the  materialistic 
tendencies  of  his  age  and  nation.  He  occupies  very  much  the  same  position  in  this 
century  as  Hume  did  in  the  last,  and  Hobbes  did  in  the  previous  one — differing, 
however,  from  them,  as  much  as  the  nineteenth  century  differs  from  the  eighteenth 
and  the  seventeenth.  In  mathematics  and  various  branches  of  natural  philosophy 
he  displays  great  clearness  and  shrewdness;  but,  led  by  a  spirit  of  haughty  dogma- 
tism, as  unphilosophical  as  it  is  often  profane,  he  errs  palpably  and  egregiously  in 
supposing  that  these  sciences  exhaust  the  whole  of  existence  that  cau  fall  undei 
our  notice.  According  to  his  grand  generalization,  so  lauded  by  his  admirers,  phi- 
losophy, in  its  early  stages  is  theological,  then  metaphysical,  and  finally  positive. 
In  modern  Europe  it  has  reached,  he  supposes,  this  third  stage — which  is  that  of 
manhood — and  so  has  superseded  the  two  former  stages  of  infancy  and  childhood, 
which  have  for  ever  passed  away.  This  appears  to  us  to  be  as  rash  a  generalization 
as  ever  was  made  by  any  German  theorist.  When  scientific  inquiry  commenced, 
a  great  number  of  topics  had  to  be  discussed  at  one  and  the  same  time  ;  these  were 
afterwards  separated  on  the  principle  of  the  Division  of  Labour,  which  has  acted  as 
important  a  part  in  science,  as  in  the  advancement  of  national  wealth.  At  first 
theology,  metaphysics,  and  physics,  and  other  sciences  besides,  were  blended  to- 
gether, and  then  they  came  to  be  treated  apart.  There  is  merit  in  >"\>mte's  classi- 
fication of  the  physical  sciences,  if  not  carried  too  far,  as  shewing  how  certain 
sciences  came  before  others ;  but  there  may  be  sciences  not  only  of  matter  but  of 
mind,  such  as  Psychology,  Logics,  Ethics,  Metaphysics,  &c.  It  argues  great  nar- 
rowness of  mind,  to  suppose,  that  any  one  of  the  separate  sciences,  or  sets  of 
sciences,  is  entitled  to  supersede  the  others.  Theology  may  be  made  as  positive  a 
science  as  any  branch  of  physics,  and  if  mind  exists — as  consciousness  declares — 
there  may  always  be  a  positive  psychological  science.  There  should  in  every  age 
be  a  theological,  a  metaphysical,  and  a  physical  philosophy.  We  should  certainly 
like  to  see  the  other  two  made  as  positive  as  M.  Comte  has  sought  to  make  physical 
science. 

(3.)  Exactly  the  counterpart,  in  every  respect,  of  the  positive  philosophy  are  the 
two  works  of  Whewell  on  the  History  and  the  Philosophy  of  the  Inductive  Sciences, 
(see  Review,  pp.  107-111.)     The  great  m*rit  of  the  latter  consists  in  showing  that 


532  APPENDIX  ON  FUNDAMENTAL  PRINCIPLES. 

the  mind  must  bring  with  it  certain  Fundamental  Ideas  and  Conceptions,  (we 
would  rather  say  capacities  with  principles  involved  in  them,)  in  order  to  the  inves- 
tigation of  external  nature.  All  physical  research  presupposes,  he  maintains,  the 
possession  of  fundamental  ideas,  such  as  those  of  space,  time,  cause,  outness  of 
objects,  and  media  of  perception  of  secondary  qualities,  polarity,  chemical  composi 
tion  and  affinity,  substance,  likeness  and  natural  affinity,  means  and  ends,  symmetry 
and  vital  powers.  In  following  this  course,  he  has  done  unspeakable  service  to 
modern  science,  which,  in  attending  to  the  objective,  has  been  much  disposed 
to  leave  the  subjective  out  of  view.  "We  are  inclined  to  think,  however,  that  he 
magnifies  the  subjective,  in  much  the  same  way  as  Kant  did,  beyond  what  it  ought 
to  be.  He  seems  to  think  that  these  ideas,  in  physical  investigation,  furnish  laws 
which  are  not  in  nature  itself.  "  Observed  facts  are  connected  so  as  to  produce  new 
truths,  by  superinducing  upon  them  an  idea." — (Aphorisms  concerning  Ideas,  xi.) 
These  ideas  or  capacities  seem  to  us  to  be  rather  the  means  of  enabling  us  to  dis- 
cover what  is  in  nature.  He  also  errs  by  referring  to  a  priori  principles,  not  a  few 
truths,  evidently  derived  from  observation. 

(4.)  Y^orthy  of  being  ranked  with  either  of  the  two  last,  is  the  Treatise  on  Logic, 
by  John  S.  Mill,  (see  pp.  81,  88, 104,  420.)  In  respect  of  the  attention  paid  to  the 
Bubjective,  he  ranks  higher  than  M.  Comte,  but  considerably  lower  than  Whewell. 
He  admits  consciousness  as  a  source  of  knowledge,  but  does  not  seem  to  us  to  have 
fully  studied  the  revelations  of  consciousness.  He  does  not  profess  to  deal  with  the 
"  original  data  or  ultimate  premises  of  our  knowledge,  with  their  number  or  nature, 
or  the  tests  by  which  they  may  be  distinguished."  (Introd.)  Yet  there  is  a  meta- 
physical system  derived  partly  from  Dr.  T.  Brown,  partly  from  Mr.  James  Mill, 
and  partly  from  Comte,  underlying  all  his  principles,  and  breaking  out  from  time  to 
time.  He  acknowledges  that  there  are  truths  known  directly  and  of  themselves,  by 
"intuition"  and  "  immediate  consciousness,"  (Introd.),  but  he  does  not  see  that  there 
must  be  laws  involved  in  the  "  mental  nature"  which  is  capable  of  such  knowledge. 
He  derives  not  only  the  law  of  cause  and  effect,  but  mathematical  axioms,  from  the 
induction  of  sensible  experience  ;  and  if  he  carry  out  his  principles  he  must  be  pre- 
pared to  acknowledge,  that  in  other  worlds  not  only  that  there  may  be  no  causation, 
but  that  two  parallel  lines  may  meet — for  experience  cannot  go  out  into  these  other 
worlds  and  say  anything  on  the  subject.  We  regret  that  at  times  he  has  allowed 
himself  to  follow  too  implicitly  the  delusive  simplicity  of  M.  Comte,  whom  he  so 
much  admires.  He  is  obliged,  indeed,  to  talk  of  permanent  causes  and  primeval 
causes,  and  original  collocations — (B.  III.  chap.  v.  xxii.)  These  permanent  causeB 
are  substances  possessing  properties :  these  collocations  are  the  dispositions  made  in 
order  to  enable  the  substances  to  act  beneficially.  But  being  afraid  to  admit,  in  an 
unqualified  manner,  the  existence  of  properties  and  the  power  of  causation,  his 
work  distinguished  throughout  by  clearness  and  utility,  is  in  some  portions  of  it 
perplexed  and  unsatisfactory. 


Art.  VI.— SCHEME  OF  INTUITIVE  INTELLECTUAL  PRINCIPLES 
CONSIDERED  PSYCHOLOGICALLY.— (Page  264.) 

I.  In  drawing  out  the  scheme  of  intellectual  faculties  in  the  text,  we  have  taken 
somewhat  from  the  precious  hints  scattered  throughout  the  writings  of  Sir  W. 
Hamilton.     In  one  important  point  we  differ  from  him.     We  think  that  conscious- 


INTUITIVE  INTELLECTUAL  PRINCIPLES.  533 

ness  should  have  a  place  among  the  mental  attributes.  Two  reasons  may  be  given 
for  this: — First,  it  looks  to  a  special  object,  viz.,  self;  secondly,  it  is  a  separate 
source  of  knowledge,  ideas,  or  notions,  viz.,  of  thoughts,  feelings,  &c.  It  was  one 
great  merit  of  Locke,  that  he  represented  reflection  as  a  source  of  ideas.  Condillac 
departed  far  from  Locke  when  he  omitted  it.  Kant  has  herein  fallen  into  the  very 
error  of  Condillac.  Overlooking  consciousness,  he  represents  sense  as  alone  fur- 
nishing intuitions,  and  he  is  never  able  to  supply  this  defect  in  the  foundation  by 
the  innumerable  artificial  buttresses  added.  We  may  give  consciousness  a  separate 
name  and  place,  without  meaning  to  degrade  it  to  the  level  of  the  other  faculties. 
In  some  respects  it  is  superior  to  them  all,  having  in  it  more  of  the  essence  of  the 
soul,  and  being  exercised  whenever  the  soul  is  exercised. 

II.  In  the  chart  of  mental  powers  we  have  supposed  that  there  are  certain 
faculties  of  simple  cognition,  by  which  we  know  actually  existing  individual  objects 
in  the  concrete  :  such  as  perception,  which  gives  the  knowledge  of  material  objects, 
and  consciousness,  by  which  we  have  the  knowledge  of  self  in  given  states.  We 
speak  in  this  way  ;  for  it  is  utterly  inadequate  language  which  represents  the  mind 
in  these  operations  as  having  merely  an  impression,  or  an  idea — it  has  already 
knowledge.  In  the  exercise  of  these  faculties  we  have  already  a  number  of  intel- 
lectual intuitions,  all  however  in  the  individual  and  in  the  concrete.  Thus  in  per- 
ception we  know  the  object  as  a  substance  exercising  some  property.  Again,  by 
consciousness  we  know  self  in  a  certain  mode.  Thus  in  every  exercise  of  percep- 
tion and  consciousness  we  have  a  knowledge  of  Substance  and  Quality — not  of 
substance  and  quality  in  the  abstract,  as  we  shall  immediately  see,  but  of  individual 
substances  with  certain  of  their  qualities.  In  our  knowledge  both  of  self  and  of 
objects  external  to  self,  we  know  them  as  exercising  Active  Property.  If  we  are 
asked  to  analyze  or  explain  these  cognitions,  we  answer  that  we  cannot,  for  they 
are  simple  and  original,  and  so  cannot  be  resolved  into  anything  simpler.  In  much 
the  same  way,  in  every  exercise  of  perception,  at  least  when  sight  and  touch  are 
the  organs,  we  have  knowledge  of  objects  as  extended,  that  is,  as  existing  in  Space. 
Again,  in  every  exercise  of  memory  we  apprehend  events  as  existing  in  Time.  We 
have  already  a  cognition,  not  of  body  generally,  but  of  a  particular  body ;  not  of 
mind  in  the  abstract,  but  of  our  own  soul ;  not  of  space  per  se,  but  of  body  in  space ; 
not  of  time  separately,  but  of  events  happening  in  time.  We  know  that  some  will 
ask  in  amazement,  do  we  know  all  this  by  the  senses?  We  answer  that  by  the 
senses,  considered  merely  as  our  bodily  organism,  we  can  have  no  knowledge  or 
idea  of  anything.  What  we  mean  is,  that  all  this  is  implied  in  the  exercise  of  mind 
called  forth  by  the  senses. 

III.  A  distinction  is  to  be  drawn  between  the  intuitive  knowledge  of  individual 
objects  in  the  concrete,  and  the  abstract  or  general  notions  derived  from  it  by  the 
faculties  which  discover  relations.  In  consciousness  and  perception  we  have  a 
knowledge  of  substances  exercising  certain  qualities,  but  we  have  not  by  abstraction 
distinguished  the  quality  from  the  substance,  or  formed  by  comparison  a  general 
idea  of  either  substance  or  quality.  In  the  very  cognition  of  external  objects  we 
apprehend  them  as  existing  in  space  ;  but  this  is  different  from  the  idea  of  space 
formed  out  of  this  by  reflection.  In  the  proper  exercise  of  memory  we  have  a  cogni- 
tion of  events  happening  in  time  :  but  the  idea  of  time  is  formed  by  abstracting  the 
events  from  the  time  in  which  they  have  happened.  By  this  distinction  we  are 
6aved  from  the  manifest  absurdity  of  supposing  the  infant  mind,  in  its  first  exercises, 
to  be  occupied  about  substance  and  quality,  time  and  space,  the  ego  and  the  non- 
ego  ;  these  being  abstract  or  general  ideas  formed — legitimately  and  necessarily — 
in  mature  life,  by  persons  given  to  reflection. 


534  APPENDIX  ON  FUNDAMENTAL  PRINCIPLES. 

IV.  In  the  scheme  of  faculties  we  have  placed  the  imagination  Tliis  faculty  in 
widening  its  images  in  time  or  space,  never  can  image  the  Infinite,  it  can  represent 
merely  the  very  long  or  very  large.  So  far  then  as  the  imaging  or  picturing  power 
of  the  mind  is  concerned,  we  never  can  go  beyond  the  finite.  But  we  would  take  a 
very  imperfect  view  of  human  intelligence  if  we  confined  it  within  the  limits  of  its 
pictorial  power.  To  whatever  point  we  go  out  in  imagination,  we  are  sure  that  we 
are  not  at  the  limits  of  existence;  nay,  we  believe  that  to  whatever  farther  point, we 
might  go,  there  would  be  something  still  farther  on.  Suppose  we  were  carried  to 
the  most  distant  point  which  the  telescope  discloses,  we  would  confidently  stretch 
out  our  arms,  believing  in  a  space  beyond  into  which  they  might  enter,  and  if  our 
hand  were  stayed  we  would  believe  it  to  be  by  a  body  occupying  space.  When  a 
sounding  line  (to  borrow  an  illustration  from  the  German  philosophers)  does  not 
reach  a  bottom,  we  do  not  conclude  that  the  ocean  has  no  bottom,  but  in  sounding 
the  depths  of  space  and  time  we  are  sure  that  we  never  could  come  to  their  limits. 
Whence  this  thought,  conviction,  belief?  We  have  here  come,  as  it  appears  to  us, 
to  a  native  law  or  native  belief  of  the  mind.  It  is  a  necessary  conviction  :  we  can- 
not be  made  to  think  or  believe  otherwise.  Nay  it  is  in  a  sense  universal.  No 
doubt  the  positive  image  or  conception  formed  by  infants  and  savages  must  be  very 
limited,  but  they  believe  that,  far  as  it  reaches,  there  is  a  something  bevond.  All 
this  shews  that  there  is  here  a  constitutional  principle  of  the  mind  which  we  ought 
not  to  overlook,  and  which  Locke  overlooked,  solely  because  of  his  antipathy  to 
innate  ideas.  Such  seems  to  us  to  be  the  true  psychological  nature  of  the  mind's 
conviction  in  regard  to  the  infinite.  It  is  not  on  the  one  hand,  the  mere  negation 
to  which  the  British  school  of  philosophers  would  reduce  it.  It  is  not  as  Sir  W. 
Hamilton  represents  it,  a  mere  impotence  to  conceive  that  existence,  that  time  or 
space,  should  cease,  but  a  positive  affirmation  that  they  do  not  cease.  On  the  other 
hand,  it  is  vastly  less  than  the  unconditioned,  the  absolute,  evolved  by  the  specu- 
lators of  Germany.  The  mind  seeks  in  vain  to  embrace  the  infinite  in  a  positive 
image,  but  is  constrained  to  believe,  when  its  efforts  fail,  that  there  is  a  something 
to  which  no  limits  can  be  put.  At  the  point  at  which  it  is  obliged  to  stop,  it  takes 
a  look,  and  that  look  is  into  infinity. 

V.  There  is  a  class  of  faculties  discovering  relations  among  the  objects  that  have 
become  known  to  it.  They  enable  us  to  take  a  concrete  whole  to  pieces,  and  thus 
furnish  abstract  notions.  They  enable  us  to  discover  resemblances  and  differences, 
and  thus  give  general  notions.  When  the  objects  are  real  on  which  the  abstrac- 
tions and  generalizations  are  formed,  and  when  the  abstractions  and  geneializations 
are  properly  conducted,  the  abstractions  and  generalizations  also  imply  realities — 
not  separate  realities,  but  real  parts  or  attributes  of  a  whole  and  real  classes.  These 
faculties  are  also  so  constituted  that  they  discover  the  relation  of  cause  and  effect. 
In  our  primitive  knowledge,  we  know  substances  as  possessing  active  property. 
Every  object  being  known  as  possessing  active  power  or  property,  we  are  led  to 
believe  that  this  property  will  act  on  the  needful  conditions  being  supplied  ;  and, 
again,  on  being  made  aware  of  a  new  substance  being  produced,  or  a  substance 
changed,  we  are  led  to  trace  the  production  of  it  to  a  property  either  in  the  sub- 
stance itself  or  in  some  other. 

VI.  We  see  how  the  intuitions  stand  related  to  our  faculties.  They  are  not 
separate  from  our  faculties,  but  the  very  law  of  the  faculties.  Every  faculty  in  its 
primitive  exercise  is  intuitive,  and  every  true  original  faculty  furnishes  cognitions 
which  are  intuitive.  It  is  the  business  of  metaphysical  philosophy  to  spread  out 
these  roots  of  the  faculties  (which  are  unseen  to  the  common  eye)  in  much  the  same 
way  as  the  roots  of  certain  flowers  are  made  visible  in  glasses.     The  first  and  main 


INTUITIVE  INTELLECTUAL  PRINCIPLES.  535 

duty  of  metaphysical  philosophy  is  to  undertake  a  careful  induction,  and  furnish  a 
rigid  expression,  of  the  constitutional  principles  of  the  mind. 

VII.  These  intuitions  guarantee  the  truths  which  they  reveal.  As  to  what  pre- 
cise truth  is  revealed  and  guaranteed  hy  any  given  intuition,  this  is  to  be  ascer- 
tained by  inquiring  of  the  intuition  itself.  No  a  priori  dogmas  can  be  laid  down 
on  such  a  subject.  There  is  really  no  other  way  of  determining  what  are  the 
truths  vouched  by  the  intuitions  than  by  asking  them  one  by  one  what  they  have  to 
say.  But  in  thus  consulting  them,  we  find  that  each  has  one  or  more  truths  to 
utter.  These  are  truths  which  must  be  assumed  in  the  first  instance.  Afterwards 
attempts  might  be  made  to  disprove  them,  (Hamilton's  Keid,  p.  745)  ;  but  this  has 
failed.  Experience  confirms  thein  daily.  Going  round  the  intuitions  in  this  way, 
we  should  find  that  perception  guarantees  the  reality  of  the  external  object,  and 
consciousness  of  self  in  a  particular  state,  and  causation  that  when  there  is  a  real 
effect  there  must  likewise  be  a  real  cause,  and  the  belief  in  infinity  that  there  is 
eomething  infinite.  By  the  union  of  the  intuitions  of  causation  and  infinity,  we  are 
led  to  a  belief  in  a  Great  First  Cause,  who  has  power  in  himself  and  is  infinite. 

VIII.  It  this  be  a  correct  scheme  of  Psychology,  we  are  enabled  to  see  the 
fundamental  errors  of  the  schools  of  philosophy  which  have  proceeded  directly  or 
indirectly  from  Kant. 

(1.)  They  maintain  that  in  perception  and  consciousness  we  know  the  phenome- 
nal and  not  the  real — qualities  but  not  substance — the  external  world,  not  ae  it  is 
in  itself,  but  merely  as  an  unknown  something  in  its  relation  to  the  mind.  We 
hold,  in  opposition  to  this,  that  we  cognize  individual  objects,  mental  and  material, 
as  at  once  phenomenal  and  real,  as  substances  exercising  qualities,  as  positive  and 
not  relative. 

(2.)  They  maintain,  that  when  the  mind  contemplates  matter,  there  is  some- 
thing in  the  subjective  idea  to  which  there  is  nothing  corresponding  in  the 
objective  world.  To  us  it  appears  that  the  subjective  is  so  constituted,  as  to  be  abla 
to  know  exactly  certain  qualities  in  the  objective  world.     It  is  cognitive,  not  creative. 

(3.)  Some  of  them  seem  to  maintain  that,  on  the  occasion  of  the  exercise  of  the 
senses,  there  spring  up  abstract  ideas,  such  as  those  of  Space  and  Time,  Sub- 
stance and  Quality,  Cause  and  Effect,  formed  by  the  Reason  or  Intelligence.  We 
hold,  on  the  other  hand,  that  intuitively  we  know  individual  objects  in  the  con- 
crete. The  mind  has  not  an  abstract  idea  of  space  awakened  by  the  first  exercise 
of  the  sense  of  touch — it  has  merely  the  knowledge  of  an  event  existing  in  space. 
The  infant  does  not,  upon  an  event  being  remembered,  immediately  entertain  an 
idea  of  time — it  merely  has  the  knowledge  of  the  event  having  been  before  the  mind 
at  a  previous  date.  The  formation  of  the  abstract  ideas  of  space  and  time  comes 
at  a  later  date  through  the  exercise  of  the  faculties  of  reflection. 

(4.)  They  maintain  that  the  mind  is  furnished  with  certain  grand  principles 
which  it  can  use  consciously  and  knowingly,  and  with  which  it  may  set  out  in 
a  2»'iori  speculation.  We  admit  that  the  mind  in  all  its  actions  proceeds  on  intuitive 
and  fundamental  principles,  but  we  maintain  that  it  employs  these  spontaneously 
and  unconsciously,  without  directly  knowing  what  the  principles  are.  In  order  to 
know  what  the  principles  are,  we  need  to  observe  and  classify  the  cognitions  spring- 
ing up,  or  the  judgments  pronounced,  and  these  are  all  individual.  Hence  the 
futility  of  the  a  priori  method  of  speculation — hence  the  need  of  Induction,  in  order 
to  arrive  at  the  knowledge  of  Intuitive  Principles,  which  operate,  it  is  true,  inde- 
pendently of  all  experience,  but  cannot  become  known  to  us,  or  be  employed  us 
philosophic  principles,  till  we  have  determined  their  nature,  rule,  and  limits,  by 
'jareful  observation. 


536  APPENDIX  ON  FUNDAMENTAL  PRINCIPLES. 


SUPPLEMENTARY  ARTICLE  ON  THE  PHENOMENAL  AND  RELATIVITY 
THEORIES  OF  HUMAN  KNOWLEDGE. 

There  are  views  prevalent  in  metaphysical  speculation,  which  are  working  as 
much  mischief  in  the  present  day  as  the  ideal  theory  did  in  the  time  of  Berkeley. 
What  we  need  is  a  new  Thomas  Reid,  to  do  in  this  century  what  the  Scottish 
philosopher  did  in  the  last — to  bring  back  speculation  to  a  modest  induction.  In 
the  absence  of  such,  we  have  a  remark  or  two  to  make  in  the  way  of  protest. 

According  to  the  prevailing  metaphysics  of  this  age,  the  mind  perceives  as 
external  to  itself  only  Phenomena.  This  is  one  of  the  fundamental  principles  of 
Kant,  and  runs  through  all  the  philosophies,  which  have  ramified  immediately  or 
mediately  from  that  powerful  thinker — we  cannot  add  careful  observer.  Kant  goes 
so  far  as  to  maintain  that  our  knowledge  even  of  self  or  mind  is  only  phenomenal. 
This  phenomenal  theory,  coupled  with  the  cognate  doctrine,  that  sense  is  the  only 
source  of  experiential  knowledge  (thereby  omitting  consciousness),  and  that  we  are 
not  conscious  of  self  as  a  distinct  object,  constitute  in  our  view  (this  is  not  the 
common  view)  the  fundamental  errors  of  the  great  German  metaphysician.  In 
examining  this  phenomena!  theory,  it  is  needful  to  notice  that  the  word  phenomenon 
has  two  meanings.  In  the  nomenclature  of  science,  it  means  a  fact  to  be  explained, 
an  individual  really  known,  to  be  referred  to  a  law  or  cause  unknown.  Using  the 
phrase  in  this  sense,  we  at  once  admit  that  the  mind  does  begin  with  a  knowledge 
of  individual  phenomena  in  the  concrete,  and  thence  proceeds  to  analyze  the 
concrete  whole  into  parts  (by  abstraction),  to  discover  resemblances  (generalize), 
and  causes  (producing  power).  We  suspect  that  it  is  in  this  sense  that  many 
British  writers  so  readily  admit  the  Kantian  maxim,  that  the  mind  in  perception 
and  self-consciousness  knows  phenomena,  and  phenomena  only.  But  it  is  not  in 
this  sense  that  Kant  holds  the  doctrine.  According  to  him,  the  mind,  by  the 
external  and  internal  senses,  observes,  not  real  things,  but  phenomena  in  the  sense 
of  appearances,  in  regard  to  which  he  holds  that  there  is  much  in  them  which  has 
no  objective  reality,  and  that  we  cannot  tell  how  much  or  how  little  of  the  remainder 
is  real.  Now,  this  phenomenon  seems  to  us  to  be  a  mere  modification  (and  no  im- 
provement) of  the  idea  of  the  older  speculators ;  it  is  a  tertium  quid,  interposing 
itself  officiously  between  the  knowing  mind  and  the  thing  known.  In  opposition 
to  this  prevailing  doctrine,  we  lay  down  the  maxim,  that  the  mind  knows  intuitively 
the  thing  itself,  not  all  the  thing,  but  the  thing  in  the  mode  in  which  it  is  presented. 
What  we  know  is  phenomenon  in  the  British  sense,  viz.,  an  individual  object  or 
reality.  If  we  are  asked  to  prove  this,  we  answer,  that  this  is  a  primary  cognition, 
which  does  not  admit  of  proof  by  any  other  cognition  clearer,  or  simpler,  or  more 
fundamental.  The  mind  holds  the  object  to  be  a  real  object — it  may  imagine  it  to  be 
otherwise,  but  cannot  judge  or  believe  it  to  be  otherwise.  The  mind  cannot  trust 
to  itself  at  all  if  it  cannot  trust  to  itself  in  this.  But  the  mind  will,  and  must 
trust  itself  in  this  respect,  and  finds  its  native  belief  confirmed  by  daily  experience. 
No  doubt,  the  metaphysician  experiences  a  difficulty  in  reconciling  certain  pheno- 
mena with  the  trustworthiness  of  our  original  perceptions.  (See  Art.  II.)  But 
some  of  these  difficulties  (as,  for  example,  in  regard  to  the  reality  of  heat)  have  been 
removed  by  science,  while  those  that  remain  are  found  in  departments  of  nature  not 
yet  thoroughly  explored,  and  cannot  set  aside  a  doctrine  which  (though  difficult  to 
unfold  precisely)  can  appeal  to  our  very  intuitions. 

It  seems  very  clear,  that  unless  the  mind  begins  with  realities,  with  things  in  its 
primary  knowledge,  it  can  never  reach  these  by  any  logical  or  intellectual  process. 


SUPPLEMENTARY  ARTICLE.  537 

In  the  Kantian  system,  the  real,  external — and  we  may  add,  internal,  disappears 
more  and  more  as  we  advance;  and  when  we  rise  heyond  the  categories  which  are 
the  rules  hy  which  we  judge  of  phenomena,  to  the  ideas  of  pure  reason  which  give 
a  unity  to  the  categories — we  have  left  it  behind  altogether.  Having  begun  with  a 
shadow,  we  must  end  with  a  shadow  becoming  fainter  and  fainter,  or  rather  with 
a  reflection  of  that  shadow.  But  let  us  begin  with  a  reality,  and  apply  the  under- 
standing to  it  according  to  logical  laws ;  and  we  shall  find  that  we  are  not  led  into 
contradictions  nor  scepticism,  but  conducted  to  farther  truths  (not  however  to  all 
truths)  also  implying  a  reality. 


Somewhat  allied  to  the  doctrine  of  the  Phenomenality,  is  that  of  the  Kelativity 
of  human  knowledge.  Sir  W.  Hamilton  has  shewn  that  there  has  been  a  doctrine 
of  relativity  held  from  the  beginning  of  speculation  down  to  the  present  time.  We 
might  argue  that  this  circumstance  does  not  prove  the  dogma  to  be  sound,  any 
more  than  the  maintenance  from  an  ancient  date  of  the  ideal  theory  of  perception 
proves  that  theory  to  be  correct.  But  instead  of  urging  this,  we  aver  that  the  gen- 
erally entertained  doctrine  of  relativity  (which  contains  a  truth  often  vaguely  ex- 
pressed) is  not  the  same  as  that  elaborated  with  such  analytic  skill  and  logical 
power  by  Sir  W.  Hamilton.  It  is  known  to  Sir  William,  that  Beid  did  not  uni- 
formly hold  the  doctrine  in  the  sense  of  his  learned  commentator,  for  he  says, 
(Hamilton's  Keid,  p.  313,)  that  our  "  senses  give  us  a  direct  and  a  distinct  notion 
of  the  primary  qualities,  and  inform  us  what  they  are  in  themselves." 

As  Sir  William  Hamilton  has  not  fully  unfolded  his  theory,  we  are  not  in  circum- 
stances to  examine  it  fairly.  If  we  are  misinterpreting  him,  to  retract  these  objec- 
tions will  give  us  pleasure — such  as  we  have  not  felt  in  advancing  them.  We  confess 
that  we  have  found  a  difficulty  in  understanding  precisely  what  is  meant  by  the 
phrases  employed.  Our  knowledge  is  said  to  be  in  itself,  and  of  the  phenomenal, 
relative,  conditioned,  finite.     "  Our  knowledge  of  mind  and  of  matter  is  relative — 

conditioned — relatively  conditioned."     "  All  that  we  know  is  phaetaomenal phseno- 

menal  of  the  unknown."  (Discussions,  p.  608.)  Do  these  phrases  always  denote 
or  imply  the  same  thing  ?  Is  the  relative  necessarily  phenomenal  ?  Is  the  relative 
necessarily  conditioned?  May  there  not  be  relations  which  are  not  conditions? 
Is  every  thing  relative  necessarily  finite  ?  God  stands  in  a  relation  to  his  works  ; 
but  this  does  not  appear  to  make  these  works  stand  to  him  in  the  relation  of  a  con- 
dition.    It  does  not  make  God  finite  that  he  stands  in  a  relation  to  creation. 

Man's  knowledge  is  limited  ;  but  it  is  as  his  sense  and  range  of  vision  are  limited. 
The  eye  sees  so  much  when  it  looks  out  on  the  broad  ocean,  but  there  is  more  that 
it  does  not  see.  So  it  is  with  man's  mental  apprehension.  Man  does  not,  cannot 
know  everything  ;  nay,  he  does  not  seem  to  know  all  about  any  one  thing,  material, 
mental,  or  Divine.  Of  the  many  properties  possessed  by  body  or  spirit,  (not  to  speak 
of  the  Divine  Spirit,)  he  knows  only  a  few.  His  knowledge  of  no  one  thing  is  ab- 
solute, in  the  sense  of  being  a  complete  knowledge  of  that  one  thing. — Still  his 
knowledge  is  not  of  relations,  limits,  conditions,  appearances,  but  of  things  to  a 
certain  extent,  and  as  presented  to  him.  And  this  knowledge,  though  contracted, 
may  be  true  and  sound,  so  far  as  it  goes,  and  if  he  knew  more,  it  would  not  set 
aside  or  modify  our  previous  knowledge,  but  merely  expand  it. 

In  order  to  express  that  man's  knowledge  is  confined,  some  writers  say  that  we 
know  objects  merely  in  relation  to  our  faculties.  But  they  do  not  thereby  mean, 
that  man  knows  merely  phenomena  and  not  things,  not  things  themselves,  but 
things  under  a  relation.     They  mean  simply  that  we  have  not  faculties  to  know  all 


538  APPENDIX  ON  FUNDAMENTAL  PRINCIPLES. 

knowledge,  and  that  things  are  known  only  so  far  as  our  faculties  are  constituted  to 
attain  such  knowledge. 

True  there  must  always  be  a  relation  between  the  knowing  and  the  known.  This 
must  be  true  of  Divine  as  well  as  human  knowledge.  But  it  does  not  therefore 
follow  that  man's  primary  and  intuitive  knowledge  is  of  the  relation.  In  many 
cases,  it  is  the  knowledge  which  constitutes  the  relation,  and  not  the  relation  which 
is  the  object  of  the  knowledge. 

On  the  very  grounds  on  which  Sir  William  Hamilton  argues  so  powerfully  that 
our  knowledge  is  original  and  not  inferred,  immediate  and  not  through  an  idea,  do 
we  argue  that  it  is  positive  and  not  merely  phenomenal  or  relative.  No  man  has 
shewn  so  clearly  that  there  are  cognitions  at  first  hand — which,  as  the  elements  of 
our  mental  constitution,  "  must  by  us  be  accepted  as  true." — (Note  A.  p.  743  of 
edit,  of  Keid.)  But  what  is  meant  by  accepting  them  as  true?  Surely  it  is  accept- 
ing the  truth  which  they  certify.  But  does  not  the  mind  in  sense-perception  hold 
the  object  to  be  a  real  object?  Does  it  not  hold  the  same  in  reference  to  its  know- 
ledge of  self  by  consciousness?  Does  it  not  hold  in  both  these  cases  that  it  knows 
the  thing,  and  not  an  appearance,  and  not  a  relation  between  that  thing  and  the  mind, 
and  between  one  thing  and  another?  If  we  cannot  trust  our  faculties  in  this,  we 
can  trust  them  in  nothing.  "  If  mendacity  be  admitted  of  some  of  our  mental  dic- 
tates, we  cannot  vindicate  veracity  of  any.  If  one  be  delusive,  so  may  all: — falsus 
in  uno  falsus  in  omnibus.     Absolute  scepticism  is  here  the, legitimate  conclusion." 

Speaking  not  of  the  relativity  of  knowledge,  but  of  objects,  we  are  ever  noticing 
relations  among  different  objects,  or  different  parts  of  the  same  object.  But  we 
know  these  as  relations  among  objects  known.  It  is  because  we  know  things  (so 
much  of  them)  that  we  know  the  relations  of  things.  Thus  we  know  body  as  at 
one  and  the  same  time  substance  and  quality,  and  can  thus  cognize  the  relation 
between  them.  We  know  substance  as  having  power,  and  can  thus  trace  its  rela- 
tion to  its  effects.  We  know  the  object  primarily  as  in  a  certain  mode,  or  exercis- 
ing a  certain  property,  but  we  would  not  say  that  the  thing  was  unknown,  because 
it  thus  appeared  to  us,  but  that  it  was  so  far  known,  as  under  this  mode,  or  in  the 
exercise  of  this  property. 

The  result  at  which  we  arrive  by  these  speculations  is  not  "  nescience,"  but  a 
limited  knowledge,  not  a.  "  learned  ignorance,"  which  may  be  a  very  proud  ignor- 
ance, but  a  humble  learning,  grateful  for  what  it  knows,  but  ever  awed  with  the 
conviction  that  what  it  knows  is  little  in  comparison  of  what  it  does  not  know, 
and  cannot  know,  in  this  present  world;  is  but  a  little  sphere  of  light  in  the  heart 
of  an  infinitude  of  (to  man)  darkness.  Man  is,  after  all,  but  gathering  pebbles  by 
the  shore  of  the  ocean  of  truth,  which  lies  before  him  unexplored  and  unexplorable 
— still  what  he  gathers  are  pebbles,  and  not  the  mere  appearance  of  pebbles,  or 
pebbles  in  relation  to  him.  Let  us  value  what  we  know  as  trustworthy,  but  feel, 
meanwhile,  that  we  dare  not  dictate  and  dogmatize  as  to  topics  which  lie  in  the  un- 
knowable region  which  surrounds  us  above  and  below,  before  and  behind,  on  the 
right  hand  and  the  left.  "  The  secret  things  belong  unto  the  Lord  our  God,  but 
those  things  which  are  revealed  belong  unto  us  and  to  our  children." 

The  most  extreme  representative  of  this  school  is  Professor  Ferrier,  in  his  Insti- 
tutes of  Metaphysic.  The  work  professes  to  be  a  demonstration,  but  does  not  at 
its  commencement  announce  any  definitions  nor  axioms,  to  let  us  know  what  is 
assumed,  and  in  what  sense.  His  first  proposition  is: — "Along  with  whatever  in- 
telligence knows,  it  mutt,  as  the  ground  or  condition  of  its  knowledge,  have  some 
cognizance  of  itself."     Does  this  proposition  announce  itself  as  intuitively  true  r 


OPERATION  OF  CAUSE  AND  EFFECT  IN  THE  HUMAN  MIND.       539 

We  do  not  admit  it,  till  the  word  condition  is  explained.     His  Second  Proposition 
erected  on  the  First,  is: — "The  object  of  knowledge,  whatever  it  may  be,  is  always 
something  more   than   what   is   naturally  or   usually  regarded   as  the  object.     It 
always  is,  and  must  be,  the  object  with  the  addition  of  one's  self — object  plus  subject 
— thing,  or  thought,  mecum.     Self  is  an  integral  and  essential  part  of  every  object 
of  cognition."     We  admit  as  a  psychological  fact,  that  the  consciousness  of  self  co- 
exists with  every  mental  act,  but  so  also  does  the  exercise  of  certain  senses,  as  the 
sense  of  our  bodily  frame,  and  the  sense  of  touch  ;  but  surely  this  does  not  shew 
that  our  cognition  of  an  object,  say  of  a  distant  hill,  is  a  cognition  of  this  hill  plus 
a  sense  of  the  eye  with  which  we  look  at  it.     Consciousness  runs  through  all  our 
mental  states,  and  among  others  our  ratiocinations  ;  but  this  does  not  prove  that 
the  object  before  the  mind  in  reasoning  is  this  premiss  plus  self,  and  this  other  pre- 
miss plus  self,  and  this  conclusion  jrtus  self,  and  this  relation  of  premiss  and  con- 
clusion plus  self.     Carry  out  the  principle,  and  the  very  apprehension  of  the  argu- 
ments of  the  "  Institutes  "  becomes  an  apprehension  of  these  arguments  plus  self. 
This  lands  us  logically  in  an  idealism,  in  which  not  only  the  material  world,  but 
all  truth — the  very  existence  and  being  of  a  God — ceases  to  be  a  reality,  independ- 
ent of  the  contemplative  mind,  and  becomes  an  object  mecum.     It  is  all  true  that 
we  know  ourselves  when  we  know  external  objects,  but  we  know  external  objects  as 
different  from  ourselves,  and  having  a  reality  independent  of  ourselves.     The  exter- 
nal object  is  known  along  with  the  internal  self,  but  is  known  as  an  object  inde- 
pendent of  self,  and  not  as  an  object  plus  self.     The  cognitions  of  self,  and  of  not- 
self,    coexist,    but   the    cognitions   apprehend  two    objects   as    having  a   separate 
existence.     The  one  of  these  propositions  is  as  certain  as  the  other,   and  the  one 
cannot  be  used  to  set  aside  the  other.     It  is  one  of  the  conditions  of  the  legitimate 
use  of  first  principles,  (as  stated  by  Hamilton,  edit,  of  Eeid,  p.  747,)  "  that  we  em- 
brace all  [and  not  merely  some  one  of]  the  original  data  of  consciousness."     When 
we  have  removed  the  first  two  propositions,  the  castle  of  cards  must  fall.     We  have 
noticed  that  in  rearing  his  fabric,  Mr.  F.  is  ever,  without  acknowledgment,  assuming 
principles,  which  are  not  clearer  than  those  which  they  are  employed  to  set  aside. 
His  Counter  Propositions  are  at  times  mere  foils,  constructed  by  himself  to  set  oft 
his  own  argument ;  but  they  may  have  this  good  effect,  that  they  will  compel  psy- 
chologists (of  whom  he  has  a  great  hatred)  to  observe  the  mind  more  carefully,  and 
enunciate  the  facts  more  accurately.     The  book  is  written  cleverly,  in  the  magazine 
style,  and  has  not  a  few  literary  beauties,  and  will  be  attractive  to  some  as  an  exhi- 
bition of  speculative  ingenuity.     But  our  hope  is,  that  it  will  be  regarded  by  the 
sober  British  thinkers  as  a  reductio  ad  ahsurdum  of  the  whole  style  of  speculation, 
of  which  it  is  a  specimen.     If  this  is  not  the  effect,  the  next  phenomenon  appearing 
in  the  philosophic  firmament  must  be  a  Hume  or  a  Fichte. 


Art.  VII.— OPERATION  OF  CAUSE  AND  EFFECT  IN  THE  HUMAN 

MIND.— (Page  273.) 

We  have  endeavoured  (Art.  III.)  to  point  out  the  way  in  which  the  principle  of 
cause  and  effect  operates  in  the  material  universe  :  it  is  by  the  action  of  corporeal 
substances  upon  each  other,  according  to  their  properties.  A  material  substance  is 
in  itself  passive.     Apart  from  something  external  to  itself,  it  will  never  change.     It 


540  APPENDIX  ON  FUNDAMENTAL  PPvlNCIPLES. 

seems  to  be  a  characteristic  of  matter,  that  all  its  operations  proceed  from  the  action 
of  one  substance  upon  another.     Hence  it  is  in  its  very  nature  dependent. 

Herein  is  the  activity  and  the  independence  of  spirit  distinguished  from  the 
passiveness  and  dependence  of  matter.  We  hold — we  cannot  but  hold — that  the 
principle  of  cause  and  effect  reigns  in  mind  as  in  matter.  Our  intuitive  belief  in 
causation  lead3  us  to  this  conclusion.  It  is  on  account  of  the  existence  of  such  a 
connexion  that  we  can  anticipate  the  future  in  regard  to  the  actions  of  intelligent; 
and  voluntary  beings,  as  -well  as  in  regard  to  changes  in  material  substances.  It  is 
upon  it  that  we  ground  oar  confidence  in  the  Character  and  Word  of  God.  But 
there  is  an  important  difference  between  the  manner  in  which  this  principle  operates 
in  body  and  in  spirit  In  all  proper  mental  operations,  the  causes  and  the  effects 
lie  both  within  the  mind.  Mind  is  a  self-acting  substance,  and  hence  its  activity 
and  independence. 

We  acknowledge  that  things,  ah  extra,  do  operate  upon  the  human  mind.  In 
respect,  for  instance,  to  the  sensations  produced  by  sensible  objects,  the  mind  is 
passive,  though  even  here  the  existence  of  the  sensation  implies  a  mental  capacity 
belonging  to  the  mind  itself.*  But  in  respect  of  its  proper  functions,  the  mind  is 
self-acting.f  Changes  are  produced  within  the  mind  by  the  mind  itself.  These 
changes  are  produced  according  to  mental  laws,  and  which  are  the  rules  or  princi- 
ples of  the  faculties  or  the  attributes  of  the  a?ent. 

We  have  said  that  changes  are  produced  in  the  mind  by  means  of  the  faculties 
of  the  mind.  In  investigating  the  operations  of  the  human  mind,  the  difference 
between  their  mode  of  action  and  that  of  material  substances  has  not  always  been 
kept  in  view.  Hence,  in  particular,  the  error  that  pervades  the  system  of  Dr. 
Thomas  Brown,  who  speaks  of  all  our  ideas  as  mental  states,  produced  by  the 
immediately  preceding  state,  according  to  the  laws  of  simple  and  relative  sugges- 
tions, without  taking  into  account  the  active  and  abiding  faculties  of  the  soul, 
which  (and  not  the  mere  contiguous  state)  are  the  main  causes  of  any  given  mental 
state.  We  say  the  main  causes,  or  rather  the  main  element  in  any  given  cause  ; 
for  in  mind,  as  in  matter,  causes  have  always  somewhat  of  complexity.  It  is  the 
same  quality  or  power  exercised  in  the  same  circumstances. 

We  have  seen  (B.  ii.  sect.  1)  that  in  the  operation  of  cause  in  the  material  universe, 
there  must  be  the  presence  of  two  or  more  bodies.  We  have  now  said  that,  in  this 
respect,  mind  differs  essentially  from  matter.  But  still  there  is  so  far  an  analogy 
between  the  operation  of  causes  in  both.  In  mental,  as  in  material  pheno- 
mena, there  is  a  certain  complexity  iu  the  causes.  The  whole  cause  of  any  given 
mental  state  is  not,  as  Dr.  Brown  constantly  assumes,  the  immediately  preceding 
state.  When  we  feel  our  persons  to  be  in  danger,  and  resolve  on  adopting  steps 
to  avoid  the  peril,  it  is  not  the  mere  perception  of  the  danger  that  is  the  cause  ef 
the  succeeding  volition.  There  is  most  assuredly  in  the  cause,  not  only  the  sense 
of  the  danger,  but,  as  a  more  important  element,  the  power  of  will.  When,  on 
hearing  a  falsehood  told,  we  feel  a  strong  moral  indignation,  there  is  something 
more  in  the  cause  of  this  indignation  than  a  mere  conception  of  the  falsehood ; 
there  is  a  faculty  of  the  mind  which  leads  us  to  abhor  that  which  is  evil.  In  short, 
the   true  cause  of  any  given  mental  phenomenon,  its  unconditional  antecedent, 

*  Hence  in  all  action  of  body  on  mind,  and  of  mind  on  body — in  all  perception,  for  instance, 
and  muscular  movement — there  is  a  double  cauti.  There  is  body  and  mind  in  one  state  followed 
by  the  body  and  mind  in  another  state.  This  principle  followed  out  may  throw  some  light  both  on 
the  philosophy  of  perception  and  of  voluntary  motion 

f  "  Every  body  which  is  moved  from  without  is  soulless ;  but  that  which  is  moved  from  within  of 
i'self  posse-ses  a  soul — such,  then,  is  the  very  nature  of  soul." — Plato's  Phaedrusj 


OPERATION  OF  CAUSE  AND  EFFECT  IN  THE  HUMAN  MIND.    541 

which  will  always  produce  it,  and  without  which  it  cannot  recur,  is  composed  of 
two  things — the  immediately  preceding  state,  and  a  mental  power  or  faculty. 
Should  the  latter  be  held  as  truly  the  cause,  then  the  other  falls  to  he  regarded  as 
the  circumstances,  in  the  common  aphorism,  that  the  same  cause  produces  the  same 
effect  in  the  same  circumstances.  In  many  cases  the  cause  is  still  more  complex, 
and  embraces  other  elements — as,  for  instance,  the  previous  habits  of  the  soul : 
nay,  the  very  casual  associations  of  the  mind  in  all  its  previous  history,  and  the  for- 
gotten incidents  of  childhood,  may  be  swaying  more  or  less  powerfully  the  actual 
state  produced  at  any  given  moment. 

The  non-observance  of  these  important  distinctions  has  led  to  much  confusion  in 
the  controversy  between  Libertarians  and  Necessarians.  Pseudo-necessarians,  per- 
verting the  proper  doctrine  of  philosophical  necessity,  have  represented  man  as 
having  all  bis  thoughts  and  feeliugs  determined  by  an  external  cause,  and  thus  as 
the  mere  creature  of  circumstances.  Libertarians,  in  opposing  the  doctrine,  have 
commonly  argued  as  if  all  Necessarians  held  the  doctrine  as  now  stated.  Nor  have 
Necessarians,  even  of  the  highest  order,  been  sufficiently  careful  to  guard  the  lan- 
guage employed  by  them.  Afraid  of  making  admissions  to  their  opponents,  we 
believe  that  none  of  them  has  fully  developed  the  phenomena  of  human  freedom. 
Even  Edwards  ridicules  the  idea  of  the  faculty  or  power  of  will,  or  the  soul,  in  the 
use  of  that  power,  determining  its  own  volitions .*  Now,  we  hold  it  to  be  an  in- 
controvertible fact,  and  one  of  great  importance,  that  the  true  determining  cause  ot 
every  given  volition,  is  not  any  mere  anterior  incitement,  but  the  very  soul  itself, 
by  its  inherent  power  of  will.  He  has  not  scanned  the  full  phenomena  which  con- 
sciousness discloses,  who  denies  the  real  potency  of  will — a  potency  above  all  special 
volitions — and  the  true  power  exercised  in  producing  these  volitions. 

True  Necessarians  should  learn  in  what  way  to  hold  and  defend  their  doctrine. 
Let  them  disencumber  themselves  of  all  that  doubtful  argument,  derived  from  man 
being  supposed  to  be  swayed  by  the  most  powerful  motive.  We  must  ever  hold, 
that  a  mere  incitement  can  become  a  motive  only  so  far  as  sanctioned  by  the  will ; 
so  that  it  is  not  so  much  the  incentive  that  determines  the  will,  as  the  will  that 
adopts  the  incentive.  Let  Necessarians  found  their  doctrine  on  the  circumstance, 
that  the  principle  of  cause  and  effect  reigns  in  the  domains  of  mind  as  in  the  terri- 
tories of  matter.  Let  them  also  be  careful  to  show  that  this  principle,  as  a  mental 
principle,  works  ab  intra.  In  proceeding  in  this  manner,  they  may  found  their 
doctrine  on  one  of  the  very  intellectual  intuitions  of  man's  mind  which  leads  us,  in 
mental  as  in  material  phenomena,  to  anticipate  the  same  effects  to  follow  the  same 
causes.  Their  defence,  too,  might  not  he  injured,  hut  rather  strengthened,  by  their 
dropping  the  word  necessity,  as  ambiguous,  to  say  the  least  of  it,  and  as  unhappily 
associated  with  the  idea  of  restraint  laid  on  the  will,  such  as  mere  causation  does 
not  and  cannot  lay  upon  what  we  regard  as  its  inherent  and  essential  freedom. 


It  was  only  after  finishing  this  edition  down  to  this  place,  that  we  have  had  an 
opportunity  of  reading  Mr.  Bledsoe's  Examination  of  Edwards  and  his  Theodicy. 
He  thinks  that  the  statements  put  forth  in  this  treatise,  in  regard  to  causation  and 
freedom,  as  both  found  in  the  will,  are  contradictory.  It  is  much  easier  to  assert 
than  to  prove  this,  more  especially  when  the  critic  does  not  announce  the  principle 
of  contradiction.  (See  supra,  p.  278.)  Mr.  B.  has  made  his  use  of  some  unguarded 
*  See  throughout  Sect.  ii.  of  Part  II.,  on  Freedom  of  Will. 


542  APPENDIX  ON  FUNDAMENTAL  PRINCIPLES. 

expressions  used  in  the  first  edition  of  this  work,  but  which  had  disappeared  from 
the  later  British  editions  before  the  Theodicy  was  published ;  we  do  not  think  that  the 
statements  now  made  are  inconsistent ;  but  even  though  they  were,  this  would  shew 
merely  that  we  had  failed  to  give  a  correct  expression  of  the  mental  facts,  and  would 
not  prove  that  both  causation  and  freedom  were  not  to  be  found  in  the  will,  or  that 
these  two  principles  contradicted  each  other.  Mr.  B.  deals  much  more  in  the  criti- 
cism of  others,  than  in  the  exposition  of  his  own  system.  In  such  a  subject  as  the 
freedom  of  the  will,  it  is  easy  to  start  objections,  but  not  so  easy  to  evolve  a  doctrine 
free  from  all  difficulties.  Mr.  B.  has  landed  himself  in  many.  In  order  to  support 
his  theory,  he  is  obliged  to  strip  causation  of  its  very  peculiarities,  to  make  effect 
mean  simply  what  is  effected,  and  the  proposition  that  every  effect  has  a  cause,  a 
mere  truism  or  identical  proposition,  (see  page  66  of  Examination  of  Edwards) ; — 
thereby  setting  himself  against  the  representation  of  every  school  of  philosophers, 
whether  it  be  that  of  Locke  or  Leibnitz,  of  Reid,  Kant,  Brown,  or  J.  S.  Mill.  (See 
this  defective  view  noticed  in  Art.  III.  p.  523.)  The  principle  of  cause  and  effect 
is,  that  whenever  we  notice  anything  new  or  a  change,  there  we  look  for  a  cause. 
But  here  we  have  something  new,  here  we  have  a  change,  say  a  mental  action,  say 
this  volition,  and  for  this  we  must  anticipate  a  cause.  Mr.  B.  is  obliged  to  deny 
that  cause  and  effect  reach  to  actions  of  the  mind,  thereby  setting  himself  against 
not  only  an  intuition  of  our  nature,  but  against  experience,  which  can  furnish  statis- 
tics and  anticipations  of  mental  actions,  and  these  voluntary  actions — such  as  crimes, 
as  certain  as  any  physical  statistics — such  as  bills  of  mortality,  and  all  this  surely 
proves  that  causation  must  reign  in  mind  as  in  matter.  According  to  his  scheme, 
there  can  be  no  guarantee,  even  in  the  power  of  God,  against  the  very  saints  in 
glory  falling  away,  or  even — we  use  the  language  reluctantly — in  the  continuance 
of  the  Divine  Excellence.  He  is  obliged  to  acknowledge  (Exam.  p.  225)  that  con- 
sciousness cannot  say,  as  to  any  mental  act,  whether  it  is,  or  is  not  caused,  for  all 
that  we  can  be  conscious  of  is  the  act.  But  then  he  says,  we  are  conscious  of 
action,  and  a  thing  which  acts  cannot  be  caused.  There  is  an  obvious  mistake  here, 
and  indeed  in  his  whole  view  of  action  and  passion.  Surely  that  which  is  acted  on 
may  itself  have  power  of  action. 


INDEX 


OF  AUTHORS  QUOTED  OR  REFERRED  TO,  AND  OF  SYSTEMS  AND 
TOPICS  INCIDENTALLY  DISCUSSED. 


Abelakd,  Lis  maxim,  508. 

Academics,  64. 

Adaptation,  principle  of,  2,  3,  125,  158, 
519. 

Affliction,  29-35,  197,  198,  204-207. 

Alexander  on  Moral  Science,  318,  note. 

Alfred  the  Great,  281. 

Alison,  Rev.  A.,  302. 

Alison,  Sir  A.,  204. 

Allotropisin,  522. 

Anselm,  his  theistic  argument,  7,  note; 
his  maxim,  508. 

A  priori  principles  to  he  ascertained  by 
a  posteriori  induction,  289-291,  508, 
53*5. 

Aristotle,  his  principle  of  classification, 
122  ;  intuition  the  beginning  of  de- 
monstration, 292  ;  his  ethics  have  no 
respect  to  God,  322. 

Association  of  ideas,  137,  301,  note, 
342-345,  427. 

Atheism,  3,  4,  48-54,  207-215. 

Augustine,  137,  note,  408,  452. 


Bacon,  78,   142,  note,  179,  213,   289, 

381,  390,  452. 
Bayle,  60. 
Bell,  Sir  C.,  3,  158. 
Beauty,  137,  138,  427. 
Bledsoe's  work  on  the  Will  noticed,  541, 

542 
Bonaparte,  Napoleon,  52. 
Brewster,  Sir  D.,  108,  154,  note. 
Brougham,  250,  435. 
Brown,  Dr.  T.,  his  view  of  suffering  exa- 


mined, 30-34 ;  his  statement  as  to 
inconsistency  of  a  general  and  parti- 
cular providence,  159  ;  overlooks  the 
will,  267,  311,  note;  his  view  of  fun 
damental  principles,  293  ;  bis  meagn> 
views  of  the  mora!  faculty,  291  ;  his 
analysis  of  love,  313  ;  influence  of  de- 
sire on  mental  trains,  342  ;  referred 
to,  403  ;  quoted,  431  ;  review  of  his 
theory  of  cause  and  effect,  523-527  ;  a 
defect  of  his  philosophy,  539,  540. 

Browne,  Sir  T.,  128,  185. 

Buchanan  on  Affliction,  204,  note. 

Buckland,  125. 

Butler,  8,  55,  69 ;  his  view  of  the  moral 
faculty,  297-307  ;  of  virtue,  309. 

Burke,  33,  note,  49,  140,  482. 

Burns,  R.,  378,  446. 

Byron,  335,  378,  403,  405,  446. 


Calvin,   on  self-determining  power  ol 
will,  274  ;  referred  to,  408. 

Carlyle,  8,  98,  256,  444. 

Carpenter,  96,  97. 

Causation,  82-86,  108-110,  113,  114, 
273-276,  520,  523-530,  534,  539,  540. 

Celsus,  51. 

Chalmers,  55  ;  principle  as  to  laws  and 
collocations  of  matter,  87,  88,  106, 
note;  method  of  answering  prayer 
220-222 ;  volition  and  desire,  267, 
311,  note,  314,  note;  virtuous  acts 
voluntary,  310  ;  done  because  virtuous, 
315  ;  emotion  becoming  morally  good 
or  evil,  345,  346;  referred  to,  408,  note. 


544 


INDEX. 


Chance,  in  what  senses  it  may  he  allow- 
ed that  there  is  such  a  thing,  190, 
195. 

Channing,  his  views  of  the  grandeur  of 
human  nature,  63. 

Chateaubriand,  53,  69,  200. 

Cicero,  3,  58,  184,  193,  199,  297,  464, 
465. 

Civil  Government,  235. 

Clarke,  S.,  his  theistic  argument,  8,  note; 
interpositions  of  God,  179;  his  view 
of  virtue,  317,  318;  his  theistic  argu- 
ment, 519. 

Coleridge,  52,  65,  72. 

Combe,  the  fallacies  in  his  Constitution 
of  Man,  187-189. 

Communion  with  God,  40-48,  497. 

Communists,  239. 

Complication  of  nature,  161-180. 

Comte,  his  atheistic  argument  refuted, 
3,  note;  overlooks  causes,  105,  note; 
thinks  that  positive  philosophy  is 
tending  to  the  discovery  of  one  great 
principle,  131 ;  phenomena  arranged 
as  they  are  more  or  less  complicated, 
164-168 ;  notice  of  the  religion  pro- 
pounded by  him  in  Politique  Positive, 
240  ;  his  opinion  that  the  world  could 
be  improved,  258  ;  general  character 
of  his  philosophy,  531. 

Colour,  as  a  principle  of  order,  116  ; 
colours  of  plants,  129,  130 ;  nature  of 
colour,  523. 

Concupiscence,  when  sinful,  311,  312. 

Condillac,  267,  533. 

Coniferae,  morphology  of,  122. 

Constitutional  principles  of  mind,  see 
Fundamental  Principles. 

Contradiction,  principle  of,  278. 

Correlation  of  forces,  97. 

Cousin,  a  favourite  maxim,  14 ;  his 
view  of  beauty,  137,  note;  remark  on 
consciousness,  262  ;  view  of  the  will, 
267  ;  Causation  universal,  but  not 
reaching  to  will,  275,  276 ;  view  of 
fundamental  principles,  293  ;  of  the 
moral  faculty,  303,  304,  317  ;  virtue 
implies  volition,  and  desire  not  a  moral 
act,  311;  referred  to,  408;  view  of 
the  theistic  argument,  519  ;  of  colour, 
523 ;  Causation,  525. 


Cudworth,  31S. 
Cuvier,  72,  96,  119,  158. 


Daltox's  law   of  definite   proportions 

108,  116. 
Davy,  196. 
De  Maistre,  50. 
Dependence  of  man,  172-175,  218,  23«- 

238. 
Derham,  3. 
Descartes,  his  theistic  argument,  8,  note, 

and  519  ;  his  view  of  matter,  77,  521. 
Dickie,  his  observations  as  to  colours  and 

forms  of  plants,  130,  note,  and  133, 

note. 
Diderot,  137,  note. 


Eastern  philosophy,  60. 

Eastern  superstition,  50-52,  464. 

Edwards,  Jon.,  connexion  of  God  with 
works,  147  ;  definition  of  motive,  272  ; 
notice  of  his  views  on  freedom  of  will, 
274,  note;  his  view  of  virtue,  317  ;  re- 
ferred to,  408  ;  denies  self-determin- 
ing power  of  will,  541. 

Emerson,  510. 

Emotions,  285,  266,  302-306,  416,  423- 
428. 

Egyptian  mythology,  21,  49,  461,  516. 

Epicurean  creed,  22,  42,  47,  147,  148, 
288,  464. 


Faculties  of  Mind,  scheme  of,  263, 
264,  532-534. 

Faith,  165,  note,  266,  511. 

Family  Ordinance,  235. 

Faraday,  89,  108. 

Ferrier,  notice  of  his  Institutes  of  Meta- 
phvsic,  538,  539. 

Fichte,  458. 

Field  on  colour,  523. 

Final  Cause,  3,  125,  158,  459,  519. 

Form  as  a  principle  of  order,  115-128. 

Foster,  41,  384,  385,  444. 

Fourier,  239. 

Fresnel's  undulatory  theory,  108,  111. 

Fundamental  principles  operate  spon- 
taneously,   but   must  be  inducted  in 


INDEX. 


545 


order  to  reflex  use  of  them,  290,  292- 
295,  508,  519,  520,  528,  535,  538. 


Galileo,  108. 

German  philosophy,  7,  12,  98,  131,  267, 

note,    314,   note,    458-461,    507-512, 

523,  535-537. 
Gibbon,  48,  53,  247,  252. 
Girondists,  516. 
Goethe,  views  of  transformation  of  leaf, 

120. 
Greatest  happiness  principle,  34,  308. 
Greek  mythology,  21,  50,  51,  464,  516. 
Greek  sophists,  58. 
Greg,  475. 
Grove,  97. 
Guizot,  48,  139,  217. 


Hall,  E.,  27,  189. 

Halyhurton,  453. 

Hamilton,  Sir  William,  77,  273,  277  ;  on 
fundamental  principles,  293 ;  notice 
of  result  of  philosophy  of  the  condi- 
tioned, 520;  of  his  school,  521;  re- 
view of  his  theory  of  causation,  529, 
530 ;  his  view  of  consciousness,  533  ; 
of  his  theory  of  relativity,  537,  538. 

Harris,  95. 

Hatred  of  sin,  314,  475. 

Hazlitt,  12. 

Heart,  different  faculties  included  in, 
265. 

Hegel,  131,  note,  458,  508. 

Helvetius,  41 1 ,  412. 

Herschel,  Sir  J.,  4,  note ;  his  anxiety  to 
have  the  subject  of  general  laws  and 
causation  cleared  up,  76 ;  his  state- 
ment as  to  laws  of  nature  being  quan- 
titative, 117,  118;  his  work  on  Na- 
tural Philosophy,  531. 

Hodge,  Dr.,  318. 

Homologies  of  animal  frame,  122-126. 

Hooker,  144,  474. 

Howe,  69. 

Humboldt,  105,  note,  118,  126;  error 
as  to  cause  of  unity  of  Cosmos,  130, 
131; 162. 

Hume,  48,  53,  59,  60,  (sceptical  use  of 
real  facts);   70,  note,  152,  217,  275, 


258,  308,    (error    of   his    utilitarian 
theory) ;  436,  437,  (perversions  of  con- 
science) ;  446,  524. 
Hutcheson,  view  of  beauty,  137,  note; 
of  virtue,  309,  317,  408. 


Idealists,  77,  522,  523,  535,  538,  539. 

Immortality  of  the  soul,  514-517. 

Indian  superstition,  51. 

Induction,  method  of,  applied  to  ethics, 
289,  324;  applied  to  metaphysics, 
278,  note,  508,  512,  520,  535. 

Infidelity,  48,  54. 

Infinite,  idea  of,  12,  520,  534. 

Ionian  school  of  philosophy,  130,  131. 


Jacobi  sets  feeling  in  opposition  to  the 

understanding,  265,  507. 
James,  J.  A.,  435. 
Jesuits,  385. 
Jesus  Christ,  his  atonement,  474-480  ; 

his  life  and  character,  494-500,  505. 
Job's  complaint,  41,  42. 
Jouffroy,    267,     285,    311,    317,    408, 

451. 
Justice,  313,  318,  364. 


Kames,  Lokp,  283. 

Kant,  12,  note :  his  antinomies,  278, 
note;  fundamental  principles,  292 ; 
his  practical  reason  and  categorical 
imperative,  297,  317,  318  ;  referred  to, 
408, 507,  523  ;  substance  where  action, 
528  ;  his  antinomies  and  objections  to 
a  First  Cause  noticed,  531  ;  error  as 
to  consciousness,  533 ;  fundamental 
error  as  to  mind  knowing  only  pheno- 
mena, 535-537. 

Kepler,  his  laws,  100,  107-110,  117  ;  his 
ideas  as  to  order  in  world,  131. 


Lamartine,  53,  516. 
Laplace,  his  cosmogony,  94. 
Leaf  of  plant,  120,  121. 
Leechman,  216. 

Leibnitz,  6,  70  ;  activity  of  matter,  79; 
his  Theodicee,  142 ;  doctrine  of  pre- 


2M 


546 


INDEX. 


established  harmony,  172,  vote,  179  ; 
definition  of  motive,  273,  note;  opti- 
mism, 377,  note;  force  in  substance,  528. 

Leland,  453. 

Lewes,  240,  439. 

Libertarians,  279,  280,  540 

Lindley,  120. 

Locke,  denies  intuitions  in  theory,  but 
admits  them  in  fact,  292  ;  qualities  of 
matter,  521 ;  reflection  as  source  of 
ideas,  533. 

Love,  analysis  of  313,  318,  320,  364. 

Lucretius,  163. 

Lycurgus,  235. 


Macaulat,  defective  views  as  to  answer 
to  prayer,  203,  note;  perversions  of 
conscience,  438-440. 

Mackintosh,  8,  55,  281  ;  fundamental 
principles,  293 ;  notice  of  bis  resolu- 
tion of  moral  feelings  into  association 
of  ideas,  301  ;  referred  to,  408. 

Malthus,  31. 

Maurice,  defective  view  of  atonement. 
475. 

M'Crie,  139. 

Means  of  grace,  501. 

Mechanical  view  or  God,  18,  454-456. 

Mexican  superstition,  49. 

Mill,  James,  267. 

Mill,  J.  S.,  81,  (nature  of  cause) ;  88 
note,  105,  note,  195,  note,  240,  note; 
notice  of  bis  account  of  the  belief  in 
causation,  528  ;  of  the  general  charac- 
ter of  his  work,  532. 

Miller,  H.,  155,  412. 

Miracles,  113,  114,  156,  528. 

Mohammedanism,  58. 

Montesquieu,  48,  139. 

Morell,  12 ;  review  of  his  intuitional 
theology,  507-512. 

Morphology  of  plant,  119  122. 

Mosely,  123. 

Muller  on  Sin,  377. 

Mythic  theory  of  gospel  narratives,  506, 
note. 


Natural   Tueology,  17,    18,    23,  47, 
449-454,  516-518,521. 


Neander,  51,  508. 

Necessarians,  273,  280,  541. 

Neological  critics,  53. 

Newton,  Sir  Isaac,  9?,   100,  107,  110, 

126,  152. 
Niebuhr,  5,  36,  249. 
Number,  as  aprinciple  of  order,  115-119. 


Okex,  123. 

Omens,  199-202. 

Order,  principle  of,  2, 115-138, 156,  note, 

158,  519. 
Organic  life  and  organization,  97,  98. 
Outcasts  of  society,  242,  243. 
Owen,   Dr.   J,  views  as   to  will,  274, 

note:  referred  to,  408. 
Owen,  Prof.,  views  as  to  homologies  of 

vertebrate  skeleton,  123-125,  158. 
Owen,  P.  239,  273. 


Palet,  3,  31. 

Pantheism,  15,  53,  54 ;  view  of  Provi- 
dence, 207-215  ;  opposed  to  funda- 
mental principles,  458  461,  529. 

Pascal.  56.  65,  74. 

Payne,  267. 

Perceptions,  original  and  acquired,  522, 
523. 

Peripatetics,  464. 

Persian  religion,  21. 

Pharisees,  47. 

Philosophic  theism,  465,  477,  485,  493, 
506. 

Plagues,  effect  of,  on  character,  246,  247- 

Plant,  order  in  structure  of,  119-122. 

Plato,  evil  a  limitation  of  the  Divine 
power,  61  ;  world,  an  animal,  98  ; 
views  as  to  form  and  number,  128  ;  as 
to  order,  131  ;  referred  to,  509,  515 

Pliny  the  elder,  57. 

Plurality  of  worlds,  154,  note. 

Plntarch,  49  ;  his  treatise  on  supersti- 
tion, 207-215. 

Pope,  criticism  of  hie  view  of  Provi- 
dence, 182,  183. 

Popery,  50,  51,  54. 

Prescott,  49. 

Prevost,  83,  note. 

Price,  nature  of  virtue,  307. 


INDEX. 


Properties  of  matter,  77-84,  97,  521-523. 
Pythagorean  views  of  number,  131. 


Superstition,   48-54,    192.  202 
of  Providence,  2* '7  21c 


Ray,  3. 

Reid,  Dr.  T.,  statement  of  theistic  argu- 
ment, 3  ;  fundamental  principles,  292  : 
account  of  moral  powers,  317,  318  ; 
referred  to,  408. 

Religious  persecution,  381,  382. 

Relations  among  material  objects,  88. 

Responsibility,  sense  of,  42,  43,  63,  64, 
321,  34l/400-402,  460,  476,  493, 
514. 

Reynolds,  382,  398. 

Robertson,  48,  139- 

Rochefoucalt,  411,  412. 

Roland,  Madame,  246,  note. 

Roman  Mythology,  49,  50,  54. 

Rousseau,  41,  53,  217,  306,  446,510. 


TAPPANon  the  Will,  277. 
Taylor,  Isaac,  164,  178,  193. 
Taylor,  Jeremy,  426- 
Teleology,  125,  126,  158,  519. 
Theistic  argument,   3-12,  519-521,  526, 

527,  530. 
Thiers,  16,  note,  52. 
Thomson's  Castle  of  Indolence,  256. 
Thucydides'  account  of  the  plague,  246. 
Thugs,  22,  385. 
Time,  as  a  principle  of  order,  115,  116, 

133. 
Tucker,  179, 180. 
Turner,  199. 
Typical  forms  in  nature  and  revelation, 

158,  note,  490,  note. 


Sadducees,  42,  47. 

Sceptics,  58,  77. 

Schelling,  7,  131,  note,  458. 

Schleiden,  typical  plant,  120. 

Sensational  school,  267,  273. 

Sentimental  view  of  God,  13,  14,  333, 
456-458. 

Sevigne,  48. 

Shelley,  42,  378- 

Shenstone,  256. 

Simon,  St.,  239. 

Sin,  341,  354,  365,  377,  note,  (origin  of 
sin) ;  390-392,  409,  429. 

Smith,  Adam,  139,  140,  253,  431  ;  per- 
versions of  conscience,  437-442. 

Socialism,  235,  239. 

Socrates,  2,  515. 

Spirit,  Holy,  487,  501,  502,  51:;. 

St.  Hilaire,  Geoffroy,  123. 

Stewart,  D.,  fundamental  principles.  292 ; 
the  moral  faculty,  317 ;  virtue,  307, 
408,  417. 

Stoic  Philosophy,  22,  47,  200,  (view  of 
Providence) ;  288,  332,  464. 

Substance,  521-523r  527-529,  533. 


Uleici,  529. 

Uncertainty  of  human  life  as  an  instru- 
ment of  government,  237. 

Uniformity  of  nature,  114. 143-145,  156, 
174,  175,  528. 


Vestiges  of  Creation,  85. 
Vinet,  15,46,  391,408,410. 
Volney,  58. 
Voltaire,  48,  53,  378. 


Wardlaw's  Christian  Ethics  noticed 
408,  note. 

Wayland,  318,  note. 

Whewell,  92  ;  review  of  his  philosophy 
of  the  inductive  sciences,  107-111 :  re- 
ferred to,  140;  fundamental  principles, 
283  ;  character  of  his  philosi  phy,  531, 
532. 

Xenot-hanes,  22. 

Young's  undulatory  theory,  108,  111. 


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